COMPREHENSIVE
IVUTHORITATIVE
l/VHAT YOU NEED
ive your Mac the
lernet (upability,
ultimedia power,
id speed you need
oubleshoot and
f hardware failures
iri system hang-ups
pep your Mac on
e cutting-edge of
chnology
Microsoft*
Todd Stauffer
Foreword by David Pogue, Desktop Critic, Macwor/d Magazine
reware, freeware^^
demo tools on
ROM including:
brizio Odoni's Disk Charmer
(ision Maker's TattleTech
. Clair's CadieSaver
Macworld* Mac* Upgrade
and Repair Bible
Macworld* Mac*
Upgrade and Repair
Bible
Todd Stauffer
IDG
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Credits
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Development Editor
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Copy Editor
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Book Designer
Murder By Design
Graphics and Production Specialist
Sue Defloria
Stephanie Hollier
About the Author
Todd Stauffer is the author or coauthor for over a dozen computer books including
Small Business Office 97 For Dummies (IDG Books Worldwide). He’s the cohost of
the nationally televised “Disk Doctors” call-in computing show on JEC Knowledge
TV. Todd is also a contributor to The Mac Report NetProfessional, and Inside Line
and the Mac columnist for Peak Computing Magazine and the Webintosh online
news service. Before moving to Colorado, Todd was editor-in-chief of Texas
Computing magazine, a freelance magazine writer, an advertising copy writer, and a
technical editor.
Graphics Technicians
Linda .1. Marousek
Hector Mendosa
Quality Control Specialists
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Illustrator
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Proofreader
Annie Sheldon
Indexer
C‘ Editoral Services
To Donna. Thanks for making the writing process livable, life fun to live, and for being
not only a well-rounded renaissance woman, but also the coolest Mac chick in the
world.
Foreword
T here’s an old joke, based on fact, that goes like this: According to NASA
scientists, given its ratio of body mass to wingspan, the ordinary bumblebee
is technically incapable of flight. But the bumblebee doesn’t know that, so it goes
ahead and flies anyway.
And so it is with the Mac. Thanks to strident reporting in the mainstream
press, Apple is supposed to be dead, Microsoft triumphant, and the Macintosh
extinct. But we 20 million Mac fans don’t know that, so we go right on happily
using our Macs.
Part of our happiness with Macs is due to their not becoming obsolete nearly as
quickly as Windows computers. The average Windows user must buy a new
machine every two yecirs; the average Mac fan keeps a Mac model running for five.
This book points out a prime reason why: The Mac’s simplicity extends beyond its
software design to its hardware. With a bit of good information and surprisingly
little money, the Mac on your desk today can be accelerated, expanded, fixed, and
given lease after new lease on life. In this age of cheap memory, G3 processor
upgrades, and plummeting prices on every conceivable piece of add-on gear,
keeping your Mac forever young is a more attractive option than ever.
Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible is clearly a labor of love, months in the
making; it is rich with model-by-model advice, vast amounts of troubleshooting
expertise, and enough background to help you make informed choices. I predict
you’ll be surprised, as 1 was, at the breadth of the coverage; my only suggestion
to the editors was that they consider a more accurate title, along the lines of Mac
Upgrade, Repair, Troubleshooting, ISDN, Multimedia, Networking, SCSI, USB,
Windows-Compatibility, and Hardware Bible.
They told me the cover would have to be 17 inches wide.
Anyway, here’s hoping that you and your Macs remain partners for years to come.
Thanks to this book, that future is a distinct possibility.
— David Pogue
Preface
||t feels so good to be right.
Although I’m a die-hard believer in Macintosh superiority, there was one particular
day when I finally knew — in spite of the widespread counterintelligence I read daily
in business and technology publications — that I’d made the correct decision when I
bought a Macintosh. It was the day that a Mac-oriented peripheral manufacturer
announced a PowerPC G3 upgrade card for my Power Macintosh 6100 computer.
I bought that Power Macintosh 6100 soon after it was released in 1994, becoming
an early adopter of PowerPC technology. I was on the cutting edge, I thought, and I
computed happily for nearly three-and-a-half years using that Mac — quite a long
time for a business computer, especially when you consider I make my living
writing about computers. But after that many years, my Mac was ready for
retirement.
Then came the announcement of a G3 upgrade. Six months later, after testing one of
those upgrade cards in the 6100, 1 can report that it will add years to the life of that
machine. Although 1 now work daily on a newer Mac, that 6100 is still in my office,
used by interns and contractors for design, Adobe Photoshop work, and Web
programming. And it’s more powerful and useful than Macs many years younger.
Upgrading a Mac is more than satisfying — it’s fun. The actual upgrade is rarely
difficult, it almost always works, and it’s not even terribly expensive most of the
time. By performing various upgrades, you can end up with a machine that is
not only faster; it might also be more capable and more exciting.
You can do so many interesting things with a Macintosh to make it faster, more
productive, or more powerful. Upgrading and troubleshooting a Mac isn’t just about
keeping up with the Joneses via speed boosts. It’s about raising your awareness
level of other things you can accomplish with your Mac, and then going out and
making those new things happen. Want a bigger monitor? More RAM? A network
between your Macs or faster internet access? You can have any of these things,
and in many cases these upgrades don’t require any special tools.
Not all Macs are a joy to work with, but many models are wonders of industrial
design. The Color Classic, the PowerBook, and the iMac include some amazingly
well-implemented design features (although not without some trade-offs) that
make them a joy to upgrade, if you can get your hands on the correct parts. Other
Preface XI
Macs — workhorses such as the Mac Ilvi, the Quadra 650, the Power Macintosh
7500, and the Power Macintosh G3 Minitower — are metal and plastic testimonials
to high-end power computing. You can do a lot inside these machines to extend
their power and usefulness, and you can accomplish quite a bit with them.
The ultimate goal of Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible is to give you a more
enjoyable computing experience. With a little understanding of the basics and a
few golden rules to live by, you’ll be able to upgrade and troubleshoot any Mac
out there, adding years to its life and discovering many exciting new things you
can do.
Above all else, this book will help you to continue to enjoy that Mac.
who Should Use This Book?
Have you ever wanted to do something with your Mac, but weren’t sure if it was
possible? Things like recording CDs, adding RAM, using a cable modem, getting
better 3D video performance for games, printing photographs, or implementing a
sophisticated backup plan? Or maybe you need to troubleshoot a particular Mac
(or number of different Macs') that keeps crashing, bombing, freezing, or having
trouble starting up.
If so, this is the book for you.
But who, specifically, is qualified to read this book? Obviously, Mac folks or people
who need to work with Macs. You should probably know the basics of using your
Mac — how the hard-drive icon works, how to enter data, and how to move around
on the screen. If you have that basic level of Mac knowledge, you may be surprised
at your ability to grasp computer troubleshooting. It certainly isn’t as complicated
as carpentry, modern dance, or auto repair (at least, not often). In most cases,
computer troubleshooting is much more straightforward and, in some cases, much
less likely to cause minor injuries.
Here are some of the people who should consider this book:
♦ Creative types. If you’re a writer, artist, editor, producer, publisher, or other
creative type who uses a Mac often, you’ll find this book handy for upgrading
and troubleshooting day-to-day and catastrophic problems alike.
♦ Professionals. If you’re a real estate, finance, marketing, public relations, or
senior-level professional business person, you may find it very convenient to
use a Mac on a day-to-day basis, but less than convenient to have it fail for
some reason. Flip through this book quickly to find the answers you need to
get back to work sooner.
XI j Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
♦ Small business owners/workers. In small-business settings, you can’t always
afford a network administrator or consultant. This book may serve as a
palatable substitute. Get up and running with new capabilities or fix serious
problems quickly, even when your business may be on the line. Plus, there’s
coverage of topics such as sharing printers, obtaining high-speed Internet
access, and managing your backup strategy.
♦ Hobbyists/home users. If you’re a Mac aficionado, you’ll enjoy learning some
new things about your Mac, including its inner workings and opportunities to
increase performance. If you use a Mac at home, you may find that learning
more about it helps you upgrade it for less money, makes it more useful when
used in the off hours, or gives you a leg up at work or in school.
♦ Technology professionals. If you’re in charge of managing Macs, getting them
connected to networks, or working with them in a cross-platform (Mac and
Intel-compatible PC) environment, this book should be a big help. It discusses
not only upgrading and repair, but also network configuration and
troubleshooting, along with DOS/Windows compatibility issues.
Ultimately, Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible is designed for any Mac owner,
user, or administrator who wants to learn more about how Macs work and how
they can be upgraded or fixed. This is a no-nonsense, comprehensive guide to just
about everything you can do to augment a Mac OS computer, along with tips and
instructions for actually getting the job done. It’s also a resource for you if you
have an immediate or chronic problem with your Mac that needs to be isolated
and fixed.
Here are a few of the upgrading issues this book will help you resolve:
♦ Should you upgrade your Mac, and is it something you’ll feel comfortable
doing?
♦ What different upgrade paths does your particular Mac offer?
♦ What are the bottlenecks in your particular Mac, and what’s the smartest way
to upgrade to get the best bang for the buck?
♦ What capabilities can you add to your Mac? Will they alleviate your current
limitations?
♦ Why do things go wrong with Macs?
♦ How can you pinpoint and isolate problems?
♦ What’s the best way to troubleshoot problems with your Mac?
♦ How can you get an “unhappy” Mac to start up so you can recover data or
continue working?
♦ What’s the best approach to preventative maintenance?
Preface XIII
A large part of this book is focused on the actual technologies you can use to
upgrade your Mac, as well as hints, advice, and step-by-step instructions for
performing an upgrade. I believe this book will give you a strong feel for all sorts of
upgrades, allowing you to apply some wit and wisdom to the instructions that come
with the upgrades that you buy for your Mac. It’ll also help you decide which
upgrades are best for you and where you should focus your upgrading energy.
Another huge part of this book focuses on troubleshooting problems — both
hardware and software — to help you figure out what’s happening when something
goes wrong. Not only do I cover known issues that crop up in the cases of
particular peripherals, Mac models, and software combinations, but I also give you
the tools you need to explore Mac troubleshooting on your own.
Here’s the bottom line. You can use this book in two ways: First, you can refer to
individual chapters to find the answers to specific questions or problems that
involve upgrading and/or troubleshooting. Second, you can read all or part of the
book to understand quite a bit about how Macs work and how they can be
upgraded or repaired. This general knowledge can be useful if you’ll be working
with Macs (or any computer) as a hobbyist or a professional.
what's in This Book?
This book is organized into four parts. The book can certainly be read from cover
to cover, but you’ll find that the parts differ somewhat in their approach, making
some of them more narrative than others. The first two parts are primarily about
upgrading, whereas the second two parts cover troubleshooting:
♦ Parti: Getting Ready to Upgrade. Many beginning-to-intermediate users may find
this part interesting to read from start to finish. It begins with the very
basics — reasons for upgrading and the subsystems of a Macintosh that can
be upgraded. It then provides a primer on how a Macintosh works, including
the various add-ons and upgrades you can use to augment your Mac. The next
step is to get serious about bottlenecks, or the slowdowns that your particular
Mac is experiencing. With those identified, you can plan your upgrades,
deciding what to do immediately, what can wait, and what needs to be sent out
to a service center. Finally, you take a look inside most Macintosh models,
including how to get the case open and where to find certain parts of the
computer.
♦ Part II: Performing the Upgrade. Organized more as a reference tool, this part
includes individual chapters that each discuss different types of upgrades:
what’s possible, what’s necessary, and how to perform them. Each chapter
discusses a particular upgrade goal or subsystem of the Macintosh (for
example, printing, sound, networking, storage), along with the related
XIV Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
technologies and different possible upgrades. These chapters tell you what
technologies are available, how they work, and even give a little help when it
comes to deciding which upgrade technology is best for you. You’ll also learn
about related software topics, such as implementing a backup system, getting
on the Internet, and creating a local area network.
♦ Part If/: Troubleshoot and Repair. This part begins with a discussion of
the most general level of troubleshooting: deciding whether the problem is
most likely in the hardware or in the software. If yours is a software-only
problem, you’ll probably find the solution in Part IV. In the remainder of
Part III, hardware and software/hardware integration issues are discussed.
This entails anything from hard drive and scanner problems to downed
networks and troubled PowerBooks. These chapters also feature information
and advice on major troubleshooting issues, such as what to do when the
Sad Mac icon appears or when you have trouble with the logic board, power
supply, and system memory.
♦ Part IV: Tweak and Recover the Mac OS. If your problem is in the Mac’s
operating system software, the solution will likely be found in these pages.
Part IV introduces you to the basic techniques and specific problems
associated with the Mac OS, including how to troubleshoot crashing
programs, freezes in the Finder, and specific error messages. You’ll also
take a look at preventative measures you can take to avoid system software
problems, including intelligent approaches to managing your System Folder
and other parts of the Mac OS installation. Finally, if that installation needs
a complete refresher, you’ll find strategies for backing up your Mac and
starting all over again with a clean installation of (or an upgrade to) your
Mac OS software.
You’ll find there’s a logical progression to the parts and the chapters. In almost
every case, the primary knowledge you need to understand a concept or topic is
found either in an earlier chapter or earlier in a particular chapter that covers
something highly technical. Although you certainly don’t need to read from cover
to cover, if you find you’re reading something that confuses you, flip back a few
pages to see if it’s explained in better detail.
Navigating This Book
This book is designed to make it easy for you to get as little or as much information
as you want on a particular topic. Each part offers a short explanation at the
beginning; each chapter features introductory points that explain the chapter’s
overall themes and a complete summary at the end. Use these to help you determine
whether or not a particular chapter has the information you’re seeking.
Preface XV
Within each chapter you1l encounter different icons in the margin of the text. These
alert you to the adjacent paragraphs, which offer extra information, tips, and
warnings, depending on the icon:
These paragraphs are generally filled with related information thaf s of particular
importance for some or all Mac owners. These can include cautionary notes, sideline
information, or something that might help you pinpoint a particular problem or issue.
Tip
This tidbit offers a shortcut, interesting fact, or other information that will help you get the
most out of the component, peripheral, or procedure being discussed.
This Icon alerts you to a resource on the World Wide Web that offers additional
information. Fire up your Web browser and check out the suggested site if it interests you.
(If you find a site that seems to have changed or disappeared, let me know through my
Web site or e-mail address, both of which are listed towards the end of the Preface.)
If you see this icon, the software being discussed can be Installed from the CD-ROM that
accompanies this book. It also should be catalogued on the Mac-Upgrade.com Web site,
just in case your Mac can't work with CDs.
Cross-
Referenced
In some cases. I'll discuss an item or concept that's more fully explained in another
section or chapter. If you see this icon, you can turn to the recommended section or
chapter to learn more about the topic being discussed.
Interesting tangents and tips appear in sidebars
You'll also find other important and interesting information in sidebars throughout the
book, although this information usually isn't necessary to complete the task at hand or to
finish troubleshooting the problem; it's more often another way to do or think about the
current topic.
On the CD-ROM
In the back of this book you1l find a CD-ROM that includes many of the shareware
and freeware programs recommended throughout these pages. I hope youTI find
the CD-ROM contains some welcome additions to your library of utilities for
keeping a Mac happy, as well as a few surprises for getting your Mac to fork over
information and otherwise cooperate.
XVI Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
The authors and publishing companies represented on the included CD-ROM
have all generously allowed me to present their software to you in this convenient
format; in that spirit, I recommend you pay the shareware author for any shareware
program on the CD-ROM that you find useful. This will likely entitle you to the latest
version, more features, and, perhaps, individualized support for using the software
product.
The CD-ROM features an HTML interface that nearly any Mac user should have
no trouble using; in fact, the CD-ROM includes Netscape Navigator to enable you
to view the contents of the CD-ROM if you don’t already have an HTML (Web)
browser. Insert the CD-ROM, and double-click the Read Me file for more
information, instructions, and last minute changes. Appendix C also discusses
the CD-ROM In detail.
Experts and Evangelistas
In 1996, Guy Kawasaki, Apple Fellow and Chief Evangelist, started an e-mail mailing
list called the Evangelist. Every day, people write to a special e-mail address at
Apple, where messages are gathered together, judged for their interest and appeal
to a larger Macintosh community, and then dispersed through the Internet to tens
of thousands of mailing-list recipients. These folks, called Evangelistas, read the
message, and then respond as appropriate.
Often Evangelistas respond to individual requests for help from Mac users —
problems they’re having convincing their officemates to buy Macs for their
department, issues they’re having with a technical glitch, or requests for information
on a product that can perform a particular task. The typical Evangelist question will
often get tens or hundreds of responses from friendly Mac aficionados and experts.
In the course of writing this book, 1 tapped this enormous resource by sending my
own requests to the list for tips and anecdotes about Macintosh upgrading. The
best and most pertinent of those are included in sidebars throughout this book,
along with the names of the senders and some information about them. I did this
for two reasons: first, to let you in on some great tips that were new to me when I
read them and deserve to be heard; second, to let you know that such a valuable
resource exists for you, too, and that I certainly recommend reading the Evangelist
if you have an interest in working with and maintaining Macs.
For more information on the Evangelist, see www. evangel i st .macaddi ct . com on
the Web.
Preface XVI I
Getting More Information
With the advent of the World Wide Web, information dissemination and publishing
have changed somewhat dramatically. When 1 first started writing computer
books, it wasn’t common for authors to include an e-mail address in their prefaces.
These days, something above and beyond that is usually necessary to properly
satisfy the rights and needs of readers. In the case of a topic like upgrading and
troubleshooting Macs, I believe this book needs to continue to breathe and expand
beyond the snapshot of history that’s enclosed within its shiny covers. On the
World Wide Web, I’m able to do that.
The Mac-Upgrade.com Web site is designed to fill two needs: First, it will be a forum
for discussion of this book and related topics, allowing me to chat directly with you
about upgrading and repairing Macs. Second, it will allow readers to discuss
problems among themselves or directly with the manufacturers and experts. You’ll
find coverage of newer Mac models, tips, explanations of new upgrades, news of
new technologies, and more.
The site will also serve as the official errata and bug-report page for this book. 1
recommend that you periodically stop by the pages specific to this book to see if
anything about the printed copy has changed or has been updated.
The Mac-Upgrade.com site URL is www.mac upgrade, com. For book-specific updates
only, enter www .mac-upgrade.com/bible/ in your Web browser. This book also
features a number of different resources for instant answers to your upgrading and
repairing questions. See Appendix B for the best places to find help on the Web.
You can also write me directly with questions or comments, although I’d certainly
recommend you check the Web site first. I love getting mail, and I’m happy to
answer any question — but I’m only one person, and it can take me a few days
to respond. If you happen to be asking a frequently asked question, it’s probably
already answered on the Web site, so you’ll be better served by checking there first
and getting the answer immediately.
If the Web site has not answered your question, however, send me a message at
questions@mac-upgrade.com. In the subject line of your message, let me know
how urgent the question is and tell me something about its content, as in: “3 days:
Error on Page 59?” In the body of your message, tell me everything you can about
your Mac (if relevant) and describe the problem in as much detail as possible.
If for some reason you can’t reach me through the preceding address, I will always
maintain the e-mail address tstauffer@aol.com on America Online (at least, as long
as AOL continues to exist). Please send your message with a similarly complete
subject line and description.
XVI j I Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Feedback
This is a first edition of Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible, and as such,
your feedback is most welcome and very necessary at this stage in the book’s
development. 1 certainly hope to have the opportunity to update this book
frequently and comprehensively, but 1 can’t do that without learning your opinions
on the subject matter, organization, and coverage. Please feel free to send any and
all criticism my way. You can even toss in a complement every now and then. I’ll
read every e-mail and try to incorporate as many suggestions as possible.
If you can, send the message to feedback@mac-upgrade.com and put the words
“Bible Feedback” in the subject line. Or, check out the Feedback page on the IDG
Books Worldwide Web site at www . i dgbooks . com, or send postal mail care of
Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible, IDG Books Worldwide, 919 E. Hillsdale
Blvd. Suite 400, Foster City, CA 94404.
Acknowledgments
T his was an amazing opportunity to take a stab at writing a good book on a
topic I really enjoy, which isn’t something 1 always get to say about my
computer book projects. For this book I had a good schedule, quality conspirators,
and access to the world’s greatest computing network — the Mac community. Many
people put a lot of time into this project to end up with the book that we did, and
I’m very proud of the results.
First, I’d like to thank Michael Roney and Katharine Dvorak at IDG Books Worldwide
for helping me all the way through the book-writing and editing process, including
some important decisions and some great editorial calls as we decided how this
book would be structured. Their advice and encouragement were invaluable, and
their organization is one of the most professional I’ve dealt with in this business.
With supporting help from Ami Knox and Steve Klett, it’s no surprise that IDG’s
books are as well regarded as they are.
For technical expertise 1 relied on a number of different individuals, not the least of
whom was technical editor Dennis Cohen, whose criticism of every single page of
the manuscript was inestimable. I’d also like to thank Rich Voelker and Rob Blair of
Voelker Research in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Both of them spent hours with me
hashing out the best answers to some sticky Mac problems. On top of that. Rich
went beyond the call of duty in giving me free reign in his Mac repair shop to take
pictures, explore different Mac models, and pick his brain. It was a valuable
experience that certainly proved beneficial to the book. Ryan Bruels, another of
Rich’s employees, was also helpful with preliminary troubleshooting research.
I’d like to thank a number of people, most of them industry experts and/or Mac
Evangelistas, who offered tips, advice, and anecdotes for inclusion in the book.
Those people include: Kevin Patfield, Mark Boszko, Rich Barron, Tony Hines, Dave
Johnson, Mike Kent, Scott Barber, Jim Cox, Lisa Devlin, Philip Accas, Ronald D.
Leppke, Doug Holmes, Doug Dickeson, Etienne Michaud, Rick Emery, David Lublin,
Bill Smith, Bob Boyle, J. Brian Rowe, Allan M. Schwartz, Mark Marinello, Hunt
Sidway, Andy Hendrickson, John Brassfield, Bob Patterson, Eric Wesselman, Peter
Trzcinski, Gerald Wilson, Guido Korber, Don Miller, Nancy L. Spoolman, Yuval
Kossovsky, Garry Halliday, Glenn Schunemann, Reed Jackson, George Pluimakers,
Jon Steltenpohl, Wayne H. Deese, Martin Step, and Skillman Hunter.
XX Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
It’s also important to note that very few of these tips would have reached my desk
if it weren’t for the Evangelist, an Apple-sponsored electronic mailing list created by
Guy Kawasaki and run by John Halbig. They’ve both done a valuable service by
offering a virtual meeting place for that elusive and amazing group of folks known
as the Mac Community. Ever wondered why the Mac is the best computer platform
out there? It’s the people involved.
Speaking of Apple people, I’d like to thank Keri Walker, Kim Strop, Jeremy Buschine,
and the rest of the Apple public relations staff for responding to my frantic requests
for Apple products, including a number of the Macs and peripherals pictured and
discussed in this text. Other companies that helped with the production of this
book include Polaroid, which provided an excellent 35mm slide scanner used in the
book’s production, as well as Techworks, Iomega, CH Products, SyQuest, Yamaha,
Caere, RAMP Networks, Asante, Sonnet Technology, Kensington, Wacom, and
CalComp, among others. Most of the photos in this book were shot with either a
Canon PowerShot or an Apple QuickTake 200 digital camera.
The CD-ROM’s organization, design, and HTML were conceived and implemented by
Kevin Wiley, who was also responsible for securing permission to use the
shareware and freeware titles found on the book’s CD-ROM, as well as helping me
set up, install, and test the products that are discussed throughout this book. He
also served as Web master for my Web sites and network administrator for our
offices, and proved invaluable in many other ways, including research and opinions
for the book’s content. This book would not have been as complete or as useful
without his involvement.
I’d also like to thank David Rogelberg and Brian Gill from the Studio B agency for
helping me secure this opportunity to write a book that I really wanted to write. Not
to mention the coup the two of them pulled off by putting me together with a
publisher that really wanted to give me the chance to do it well and enjoy the
experience.
Finally, I’d like to thank Donna Ladd for everything else, including being a wonderful
partner and friend throughout this entire process. Aside from reading and editing
every page of this book, Donna was there constantly to support, critique . . . and
help me forget about this effort and get out to see a movie every once in a while.
Not only would this book be the worse for her not having been a part of my life, but
I’d probably still be stuck somewhere around Chapter 12, mired in my own self-pity.
Contents at a Glance
Preface x
Acknowledgments xix
Part I: Getting Ready to Upgrade 1
Chapter 1: Is It Time to Upgrade? 3
Chapter 2: Figure Out Your Mac 23
Chapter 3: Find Your Bottlenecks 61
Chapter 4: File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 75
Chapter 5: Inside Your Mac 97
Part II: Performing the Upgrade 141
Chapter 6: Processor and Memory 143
Chapter 7: Hard Drives 179
Chapter 8: CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 207
Chapter 9: Removable Drives and Backup 227
Chapter 10: Input Devices 253
Chapter 11: Scanners and Digital Cameras 273
Chapter 12: Monitors and Monitor Cards 293
Chapter 13: Digital Video 319
Chapter 14: Sound, Speech, and MIDI 341
Chapter 15: Printers and Print Sharing 369
Chapter 16: Modems and Internet Access 393
Chapter 17: Networking 431
Chapter 18: Multimedia and Gaming 469
Chapter 19: Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 485
Chapter 20: PowerBooks 51 1
Part III: Troubleshoot and Repair 555
Chapter 21: Troubleshooting Basics: WhaCs the Problem? 557
Chapter 22: Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 571
Chapter 23: Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 597
Chapter 24: Input Devices and Scanners 629
Chapter 25: Monitors, Video, and Sound 645
Chapter 26: Printers and Modems 671
Chapter 27: Networking Issues 701
Chapter 28: Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 719
Chapter 29: PowerBook Problems 743
m m
XXII Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Part IV: Tweak and Recover the Mac OS................. .......... 769
Chapter 30: First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 771
Chapter 31: Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 791
Chapter 32: Resolve System Folder Conflicts 813
Chapter 33: In Case of Emergency: Reintall Mac OS 837
Appendix A: Vendor Listings 853
Appendix B: Online Resources 869
Appendix C: What's on the CD-ROM 885
Index 899
End-User License Agreement 945
CD-ROM Installations 949
Contents
Preface x
Acknowledgments xix
Part I: Getting Ready to Upgrade
chapter 1 ; Is It Time to Upgrade? 3
Does Your Computer Meet Your Needs? 3
The Investment Principle 4
The 75/25 Rule 6
Why different people need different computers 7
Should you upgrade or buy something new? 9
The What and Why of Upgrades 12
Is your problem a hardware or a software issue? 13
Speed up your Mac 16
Improve your productivity 18
Do more things with your Mac 19
Summary 21
chapter 2: Figure Out Your Mac 23
How Your Mac Computes 23
Processor and Memory 25
The CPU 26
Main memory 29
Other memory 31
Storing Data on Your Mac 33
Types of storage 33
Reasons to add storage 35
Hard drives 36
Floppy drives 38
Compact disc and DVD 38
Removable media 40
Input and Output 42
Hooking up I/O devices 43
Types of I/O devices 43
Communication Between Computers 54
Communicating with other computers 54
Working with DOS and Windows 56
Summary 60
XXIV Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Chapter 3: Find Your Bottlenecks 61
Why Is My Mac Slowing Down? 61
Understanding bottlenecks 63
Finding the bottleneck 65
Speed versus quality 67
Improve Your Mac’s Speed 67
Diagnosis: Slow computer 67
Speed options 69
Improve Your Mac’s Quality 70
Diagnosis: Poor quality 70
Summary 73
Chapter 4: File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 75
Determining Your Needs and Wants 75
What will it cost? 76
How can you upgrade? 79
Expansion cards: PDS, NuBus, and PCI 87
Can You Do It Yourself? 91
Three types of upgrades 91
Tools you’ll need 92
Tips for the upgrade 94
Summary 96
chapter 5: Inside Your Mac 97
Determine Your Mac Model 97
What’s in an Apple’s name? 98
What about the clones? 105
Is your Mac PowerPC-based? 109
What type of expansion bus does your Mac use? 109
Is your Mac AV capable? 110
Your Mac’s hard disk technology 110
Opening Your Mac’s Case 110
Opening any computer’s case Ill
Open your Apple Macintosh case 112
The Innards Revealed 130
Components 131
Wiring and cables 134
Expansion cards 136
Serial ports 137
Summary 139
Contents XXV
Part II: Performing the Upgrade
141
chapter 6: Processor and Memory 143
The Processor and Logic Board 144
The speed game 144
Upgradeable processors 145
Types of upgrades 146
Individual upgradeability 149
Performing the upgrade 155
Upgrading Memory 164
System RAM 164
Adding RAM 168
Summary 177
chapter 7: Hard Drives 179
Hard Drive Types and Upgrades 180
Reasons to upgrade 180
Hard drive technologies 181
Add a Hard Drive 192
What hard drive should you buy? 194
Do you need a new SCSI card? 197
Upgrading and installing a hard drive 199
Adding a RAID 204
Summary 206
chapter 8: CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 207
CD Technologies 208
How CD technology works 208
CD-ROM speeds 210
CD-Recordable 212
CD-Rewritable 213
DVD 213
Add CD-ROM Technology to Your Mac 215
Choosing a drive 216
Installing a CD-ROM drive 217
CD-Related Software 222
CD Utilities 222
Creating CD-R 224
Summary 225
■
XXVI Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Chapter 9: Removable Drives and Backup 227
Removable Drives Explained 228
Adding a Removable Media Drive to Your Mac 237
Adding an external removable media drive 238
Adding an internal removable media drive 241
Implement Your Backup Plan 243
Wliat to back up 244
How to back up 245
Summary 251
chapter 10: Input Devices 253
The Apple Desktop Bus 254
ADB connections 255
ADB numbers 257
Input Devices 257
Keyboard 258
Mousing 261
Digitizers 264
Touch screens 266
Special needs input/output 267
Universal Serial Bus 268
How USB works 268
Hooking up USB devices 269
Installing Input Devices 270
Longer cables 271
Intel-compatible peripherals 271
Summary 271
chapter 1 1 : Scanners and Digital Cameras 273
All About Scanners 274
Types of scanners 275
Scanner quality 277
Scanner software 278
Choosing a scanner 281
Installing a scanner 283
Digital Cameras 285
How digital cameras work 286
Shopping for a digital camera 287
Using the camera with your Mac 289
Summary 291
chapter 12: Monitors and Monitor Cards 293
How Mac Monitors Work 294
Bitmapped images 294
Refresh rate 295
Resolution 296
Dot pitch 299
Contents XXVII
Installing a monitor 302
Video Circuitry 305
Color depth 310
VRAM 311
Adding VRAM 312
Choosing a card 313
Installing the card 314
Summary 316
chapter 13: Digital Video 319
The Digital Video Basics 320
What you need 320
QuickTime 322
Video-in Hardware 329
Interface types 329
Built-in AV 331
Video-in expansion cards 332
Video out 334
DV/DVCAM 335
Getting Started with Video 336
Watching TV 337
Suminary 338
chapter 14: Sound, Speech, and MIDI 341
The Mac’s Audio Capabilities 342
Digital audio 343
MIDI 347
Speech technologies 356
Sound Hardware and Software 360
Digital audio hardware 361
MIDI stuff 366
Summary 368
chapter 15: Printers and Print Sharing 369
Mac Printer Technology 369
Printer issues 370
Choosing a printer 371
Printer languages 372
Printer types 374
Installing Printers 380
Cabling 381
Driver software 382
Printer sharing 384
Printer Add-Ons and Software 386
Accessories 386
Software 388
PC printers 389
Summary 390
XXViii Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Chapter 16: Modems and Internet Access ....... ... ....................393
How Modems Work 394
Modem types 395
Modem speed 396
Compression and correction 398
Flow control 399
Port speeds 401
Connection negotiation 403
Choosing and Connecting a Modem 404
Modem choices 405
Installing a modem 412
High-speed Connections 414
ISDN 415
DSL 419
Cable 422
Setting Up Internet Access 423
TCP/IP 424
PPP 426
Telephony 427
Hardware solutions 427
Software 428
Summary 429
Chapter 17: Networking 431
Mac Networking Technologies 432
LocalTalk 433
Ethernet 435
Open Transport 441
AppleTalk 442
AppleShare IP 447
NetWare for Mac 449
Setting Up the Network 449
Installing a LocalTalk network 450
Installing an Ethernet network 455
Adding a PC to the network 458
Hooking a Mac into a PC network 459
Accessing the network remotely 459
Peripheral sharing 461
Internet and Intranets 461
Internet access 462
Summary 466
chapter 18: Multimedia and Gaming 469
Accelerating 3D 470
QuickDraw 3D 470
Voodoo graphics 473
3D Accelerator cards 474
Contents XXIX
Mac Gaming 478
Game Sprockets 479
Game controllers 480
Summary 484
chapter 19: Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 485
Sharing DOS Files 486
Reading DOS media 487
Translating DOS file formats 487
DOS file archives 488
E-mail attachments 491
Running DOS and Windows Programs 492
PC compatibility hardware 493
PC emulator software 501
Sharing DOS and Windows Programs 505
Screen sharing 507
Screen swapping 508
Summary 508
chapter 20: PowerBooks 51 1
Upgrading Your PowerBook 512
Opening your PowerBook 515
Upgrading RAM 527
Internal slots 529
Processor upgrades 531
Adding a hard drive 533
Screen upgrades and replacements 534
Docks, Bays, and Slots 535
Docks 536
Bays 537
PC Cards 539
External Ports and Peripherals 543
SCSI 545
Modem/Printer 547
Video 548
SCSI Disk Mode 550
Summary 552
Part III: Troubleshoot and Repair
Chapter 21 : Troubleshooting Basics: What's the Problem? 557
The Troubleshooting Scientific Method 558
Observation: Hardware versus software 559
Hypothesize and experiment 564
Conclusion: What to do next 568
Summary 569
XXX Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Chapter 22: Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports ..571
When the Mac Won’t Start Up 571
Power-on 572
System startup 579
Parameter RAM 581
Trouble with RAM 588
Ports 591
Heat Trouble 591
The power supply 593
The case 594
Summary 594
chapter 23: Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 597
Startup Issues 598
Troubleshooting when the “X” icon appears 598
Troubleshooting when the icon appears 599
SCSI Trouble 608
SCSI symptoms 608
SCSI configuration 609
SCSI utilities 610
Cables, termination, and hardware 610
All About Disk Drives 613
Drivers and mounting 615
Testing 616
Removable media 617
Formatting and partitioning 619
Disk Fixing and File Recovery 624
Norton Utilities 624
TechTooI Pro 626
Summary 628
Chapter 24: Input Devices and Scanners 629
The ADB Bus 630
ADB by the numbers 630
Troubleshooting ADB 631
Other ADB advice 632
Keyboards and Mice 633
Mice 634
Trackballs 636
Graphics tablets 636
Keyboards 637
Scanner Troubleshooting 639
Installing and cleaning 639
Configuration 640
Serial scanners 643
Summary 643
Contents XXXI
Chapter 25: Monitors, Video, and Sound 645
Troubleshooting Monitors and Video 645
When you get no picture 646
When the picture is wavy or splotchy 648
When the picture is blurry 650
When the colors are bad 651
Glare and positioning 655
When the screen doesn’t synchronize 656
Old Macs and multisync monitors 658
Energy saving and burn in 658
Apple monitors 659
Cleaning monitors 661
Troubleshooting Digital Video and Audio 662
Digital video 662
Audio issues 664
Summary 669
chapter 26: Printers and Modems 671
Printing Problems 671
Printer won’t print 672
PostScript errors 677
Freezes and crashes 678
Desktop printing issues 679
LaserWriter issues 682
Printer maintenance 683
Font troubles 685
Modem Troubleshooting 689
Modem doesn’t work 689
Connection trouble 692
Problems during the call 699
Summary 700
Chapter 27: Networking Issues 701
Troubleshooting Your Network 701
Can’t connect a Mac 702
The network is down 706
Software Issues 708
Open Transport 709
AppleTalk 710
File sharing security 713
TCP/IP 716
Summary 718
chapter 28: Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 719
3D and Acceleration 720
QuickDraw 3D 721
Voodoo 723
XXXii Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Troubleshooting 724
Sprockets and Controllers 725
PC Compatibility 727
Floppies and files 728
PC Cards 732
Software emulators 738
Summary 740
chapter 29: PowerBook Problems 743
Startup, Shutdown, and Power 743
Shutdown, sleep, and reset 745
Reset the Power Manager 747
Reset after zapping PRAM 751
Batteries and Battery Life 751
Battery types and issues 752
Battery life 756
Random acts of conservation 759
Battery not charging 760
Other PowerBook Issues 760
PC Card issues 762
Ports and Internals 763
5300/190 repair extension 764
Temperature 765
Cleaning 765
Spills 766
Summary 768
Part IV: Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Chapter 30: First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 771
Software First Aid 771
First aid techniques 772
Software symptoms 774
Error Messages 775
‘‘Not enough memory” error message 776
“Disk is full” error message 778
“File not found” or “File system error” message 779
Program Crashes 779
Type 11 errors and “FPU not found” error messages 781
Type 41 errors and Finder or Bus error messages 783
Internet-related crashing 784
Freezes and Hangs 784
Bizarre Behavior 787
Icons and aliases 787
Contents XXXIII
Slow Startup, crashes, or freezes while word processing 788
Slow disk, disappearing files, bad menus, beeps 788
Summary 789
Chapter 31: Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 791
Regular Maintenance and Care 791
Scheduled care 792
Spring cleaning 795
Defragmenting and optimizing 800
Viruses 804
What is a virus? 804
What’s not a virus? 806
Viral symptoms 807
Detection and cleaning 808
Word Basic viruses 809
Summary 81 1
chapter 32: Resolve System Folder Conflicts 813
Identify Extension Conflicts 813
What’s an extension? 814
What’s a conflict? 815
What’s not a conflict? 816
Diagnosis: Conflict 817
Conflict Resolution 820
Identify the extension 821
Conduct a conflict search 824
Conflict management software 826
Solving the conflict 828
Other System Extension Issues 831
Memory control panel 831
Energy Saver 832
Fonts 834
Summary 835
Chapter 33: In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 837
Should You Reinstall? 838
Don’t reinstall 839
Do reinstall 840
Reinstalling Mac OS 841
Pre-flight check 841
Types of installation 843
Clean install 847
Installation errors 850
Summary 851
XXXiV Macworld Mac Upgrade and Repair Bible
Appendix A: Vendor Listings 853
Appendix B: Online Resources 869
Appendix C: What's on the CD-ROM 885
Index 899
End-User License Agreement 945
CD-ROM Installation Instructions 949
Getting Ready
to Upgrade
T his part begins with the very basics — reasons for
upgrading and the subsystems of a Macintosh that can
be upgraded. It then provides a primer on how a Macintosh
works, including the various add-ons and upgrades you can
use to augment your Mac. The next step is to get serious
about bottlenecks, or the slowdowns that your particular
Mac is experiencing. With those identified, you can plan your
upgrades, deciding what to do immediately, what can wait,
and what needs to be sent out to a service center. Finally, in
this part you take a look inside most Macintosh models,
including how to get the case open and where to find certain
parts of the computer.
PART
J
■f > ♦ >
In This Part
Chapter 1
Is It Time to
Upgrade?
Chapter 2
Figure Out Your Mac
Chapter 3
Find Your Bottlenecks
Chapter 4
File Your Upgrade
Flight Plan
Chapter 5
Inside Your Mac
Is It Time to
Upgrade?
CHAP
TER
S hould you upgrade? That’s not the easiest question in
the world to answer. If you’re like me — scared to death
of missing out on cutting edge technology — then it’s a
question you’ll ask yourself all the time. If you’re like some
other Mac owners I know, the question almost never comes
up — your Mac works and that’s that.
But it is something you should ask yourself every once in
a while. And, in general, it’s an easy question to answer.
However, here’s a more clever way to ask it. Instead of “Should
I upgrade?” ask yourself this: “Is my current Mac driving me
crazy?”
Even if your Mac is driving you just a little crazy, you’ve
probably identified a potential for an upgrade. If there’s
anything you want to do but can’t — or if everything is just too
slow for you to bother — then you’re a candidate for an
upgrade. Whether you’re interested in speed, new capabilities,
or better response times from hardware and software you
already have, you can probably add these things to your
existing Mac at a reasonable cost. All it takes is a little know-
how and a logical approach. First and foremost, you need to
follow the scientific method one learns in grade school:
Identify the problem.
4 4 4 >
In This Chapter
Does your current
Mac meet all your
needs?
Why different people
need different
computers
Should you buy a
new system?
Is your problem a
software issue?
Different reasons —
and ways — to
upgrade your Mac
4 4 4 4
Does Your Computer Meet
Your Needs?
You probably spent an absurd amount of money on your
Macintosh when it first came out, and back then it probably
met every one of your needs. Thousands of dollars were
dropped in a store, or sent in the mail, and a shiny new system
ended up in the trunk of your car, on your doorstep, or
otherwise on your desk. For quite some time, everything
hummed along nicely (see Figure 1-1).
4 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 1-1: I bought this Power Macintosh 6100/60AV in 1994. At
the time, it was a serious screamer. These days, it might be sitting in
a closet if it weren't for a couple of key upgrades that make it still
very useful and usable.
As time went by, though, updates to the system software appeared, new versions
of programs came out, and cool, new applications (such as those for Web browsing,
3D rendering, and high-end graphics) started popping up. Then one day, you
realized you were drinking a lot of coffee or nervously swiveling in your chair every
time you launched a program, saved a file, or started to print.
When this happens to many computer users, they just grin and bear it, assuming
that upgrades or a new system would be an expense best left for next year, or
somewhere down the road. Waiting to upgrade is not necessarily a good idea,
however.
The Investment Principle
1 encourage you to think seriously about your computer as an important
investment. I know you spent quite a bit of money up front, but you may have
used up those investment dollars already, especially if it’s been a few years.
What’s your time worth to you now? If you’re doing something basic such as
entering your finances and storing a household inventory, maybe you don’t
desperately need to spend much money on upgrading. But if you sit in front of
your computer for hours and hours per day — as I do — you need to think carefully
about the worth of your time and how much of it your computer is chewing up.
■ ri’ .
Chapter 1 ♦ Is It Time to Upgrade? 5
The trick then is to quantify your computing experience. Say your computer wastes
$20 of your time per day. If $20 represents time wasted on an average business day,
the computer is wasting about $5,000 of your time per year.
$20 X 250 working days per year = $5,000
That may seem like an extreme example, and it tends to assume you’re not wasting
much time on your own. In addition, you need to understand that not all upgrades
are going to completely do away with wasted time. Even the fastest Macs force you
to wait a few seconds for this and that. Nevertheless, it’s still a useful number for
gauging how beneficial it might be to upgrade for better productivity.
Next, take into account all the other issues you might have with your current
computer setup, such as:
4- Anything that just drives you crazy Is there something in your setup (printer,
modem, keyboard) that you want to replace now?
'f Anything that could be harming you. Is your monitor fuzzy? Is your mouse
cramping your wrist? These sorts of upgrades should be considered
whenever using your computer isn’t comfortable or pleasing to you.
Remember, you probably work on your Mac for hours at a time. It should be a
physically comfortable experience.
4* Any upgrade that could significantly increase productivity. I used to have an
inkjet printer that I swore by — I claimed that anyone who owned a laser
printer was just asking for trouble and wasting money. But I’m also well-known
for pushing deadlines. Every few weeks, during a book project, I’d need to
print 75 to 100 pages of text and images to send to a publisher. I would usually
start that process at about four o’clock in the afternoon to make the 7 p.m.
FedEx drop-off time. 1 often missed it.
These days, with a laser printer, I can print 50 pages in about ten minutes. The
printer cost a bit up front, but I feel much more productive on deadline days.
And — surprise! — each page printed using the laser printer’s toner is cheaper
than a page printed using an inkjet’s ink.
4- Anything you think might be realty cool. Might as well toss this one in. Would
you like to upgrade for video conferencing? How about adding a digital
camera or a scanner to help post images on the Web or place them in your
newsletters? Whatever you want, include it in your list — especially if you
think you deserve it.
Here's a suggestion: Check your calendar for an upcoming day during which you will
be required to use your computer for a lengthy stretch of time. While you work that
day keep a pen and paper handy. Make note of every time it takes your computer a
few extra seconds to "think" about something: printing, copying, loading a program,
signing on to the network. Assign a dollar amount to your hourly wage, and then mul-
tiply the dollar amount by the amount of time you were waiting on your Mac.
0 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
By now you must have at least $7,000 worth of justification for a new system. (If
you’ve got a corporate-based Mac, jump out of your cubicle, storm into the boss’
office, and demand a new computer right now.) Even if you can’t come up with that
much money immediately, you now know it’s probably worthwhile to perform some
choice upgrades right away. The question is, which upgrades should you perform?
The 75/25 Rule
I made this rule up, and over the years more than a few of my computer-
book-writing colleagues have disagreed with me. But I still think it stands, and 1
offer it here for your perusal. It’s the 75/25 Rule.
Why do a lot of computer book writers disagree with this rule? I can only assume it's
because they constantly get cool computer toys to play with -for free -from the
public relations departments of various computer companies. They then go on to pro-
claim that every computer user should spend thousands of dollars each year to
upgrade to the latest and greatest. Fortunately, that isn't usually necessary — espe-
cially in the Mac world. Less expensive upgrades can often make your computing
experience enjoyable again.
Basically, the rule goes like this: If you’re on a limited budget for computing, you
should make sure your equipment works very well for at least 75 percent of the
things you do. The other 25 percent is where you can scrimp, if necessary.
Let me elaborate, using my own setup as an example. I’m a writer, and as such, I
need a good monitor. My Main Mac has a very, very nice Sony 17" monitor, shown in
Figure 1-2, which is incredibly crisp, displays millions of colors, and doesn’t strain
my eyes.
I’m also a freelance writer, so I spend a lot of time using the Internet for e-mail and
accessing the World Wide Web for research. For this reason I have a very fast
modem connection for my computer and would consider a higher-speed option if it
were currently offered up here in the Rocky Mountains.
I also like to work with graphics and building Web sites, so I have a nice scanner.
And, as should nearly everyone who works with important data and stores large
files, I have a removable media drive (an Iomega Zip drive, currently) to help me
back up all these important documents. I’ve also spent a little extra money for a
comfortable, well-designed keyboard that promotes decent hand posture and
doesn’t annoy me with funny clicking sounds or oddly placed keys.
Chapter 1 > Is It Time to Upgrade? ~J
Figure 1-2: I deal with some graphics, but Tm not a professional
artist, so this 17" monitor is the perfect size for my work.
What don’t I have? Vm not a serious gamer, so I don’t have a 3D-enhancing video
card, an ultra-fast processor, or a major joystick or flight controller. (Actually, I did
have all three of these while writing this book, because a couple different
companies sent me their evaluation units. I may soon become a serious gamer.) I’m
also not a high-end artist, so 1 don’t need an expensive video card capable of
extremely high resolution and acceleration. Likewise, I don’t create many digital
movies, so I don’t need a full-blown audio/visual setup.
For me, the things I do that take up 75 percent of my time — looking at a monitor,
writing, communicating, working with graphics, backing up data, printing — are all
handled by equipment that’s more than adequate. In fact, 1 enjoy using a fast
Internet connection, a good monitor, and an expensive keyboard.
The things I only do 25 percent of the time — playing games, creating images, and
working with video — aren’t handled by the best and fastest add-ons. My computer
is capable of doing these things, but it’s not a barn burner.
Why different people need different computers
You can see from the description of my 75/25 distribution that different sorts of
tasks require different types of computers. My computer tends to focus on input
and output, because I mainly use it to write and print things. In fact, the demands I
typically place on a Mac don’t come near to requiring the high power that you can
get in today’s microprocessors.
3 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
On the other hand, a graphic artist, especially one using Photoshop for imaging or
3D programs for creating animations or illustrations, definitely needs a computer
with a powerful processor. A high-end artist also needs a good monitor and
scanner, but might only use a printer for proofing work, so a less-expensive color
inkjet would suffice. Whereas an artist might need only the most minimal of
modems, he or she will require access to high-end Jaz or SyQuest removable
cartridges for storing huge data files.
In general, you can separate computers into a few different categories. Although
your ideal Mac may borrow from two or more of these categories, this should give
you a starting point for deciding what sort of focus your Mac should have:
^ Input/Output oriented. Good for designers, writers, administrators, and
professionals. This sort of Mac is capable of dealing with graphics, but is not
designed specifically for that function. It has a midrange monitor, a good
printer, a good keyboard, a decent scanner, and a mouse or trackball. It also
has a modem and/or a basic network connection (if it’s located in an office
setting).
^ Graphics oriented. This Mac is designed for artists, multimedia specialists, and
architects. It features a huge monitor (or two or more monitors), a powerful
graphics subsystem on an expansion card, a lot of RAM memory, and
probably a special input tablet for freehand drawings. This computer also
uses a high-speed processor and a reasonably high-capacity hard drive. The
inkjet or dye-sublimation printer may only be for color proofing, and a
minimum modem or network connection is necessary for e-mail or light
browsing. In most cases, files are transferred using removable cartridges that
can handle huge documents.
4 - Multimedia oriented. The audio/video (AV) professional or hobbyist,
depending on the specialty, might need a special video-in card to help receive
and compress live video signals for editing on the Mac. Multimedia-oriented
computers need high-end processors, lots of RAM, and, quite often, expensive
expansion cards for video editing. The monitor may not be particularly
special, and the printer may not even be necessary, except for the occasional
script or memo. There’s probably not much reason for such a computer to be
on a network (unless you have an office full of these AV monsters), but it will
need a high-capacity removable drive. The modem is optional, as is a scanner
and cool input device, although a graphics tablet and pen is nice for selecting
and playing back video segments on screen.
> Communications oriented. This Mac is good for the home office or small
business, salespeople, telecommuters, managers, and executives. It’s
perfectly good for reports, memos, and spreadsheets, but isn’t designed for
ten hours of use per day. Instead, it has a smaller monitor, decent keyboard,
and typical mouse. The printer is a low-end laser or a fast inkjet, a scanner is
either page-fed (for faxing through the computer) or nonexistent, and the
Chapter 1 ♦ Is It Time to Upgrade? 9
processor is midrange. The modem or other Internet connection is fast,
though, and this computer might even be equipped with telephony devices to
keep an electronic log of long-distance calls, track appointments, and identify
incoming calls using Caller ID information.
> Home/Games oriented. The home machine is midrange, enabling it to perform
a variety of tasks — it can be used for business communications, desktop
publishing, and connecting to the Internet. But its focus is on affordability
and, in many cases, multimedia for games and educational titles. The printer,
modem, and keyboard are all adequate, but a gamer’s Mac will feature a
quality joystick, a midsized monitor, and a special video card. Even a 3D-
oriented gaming card can be plugged into this machine. It also features a fast
processor, a fast CD-ROM drive, and good speakers. That’s not just for gaming;
you can also play audio CDs over this high-quality system while entering
checkbook information or creating a database for your volunteer
organization.
Where do you fit in? Perhaps with none of them — or several of them all at once.
But you can see where your system is most likely hybridized, and what you’d
typically want to concentrate on for a given task. If you’re dealing with a tight
budget, pick 75 percent of those tasks you most need to accomplish and build a
Mac that tackles them elegantly and completely.
Should you upgrade or buy something new?
This is a tough question to answer, because it depends on a number of different
factors, including what you already own, what you do with it, and how interested
you are in spending money on the computer. The Macintosh is well known for its
ability to stay useful for many, many years, even without significant upgrades. Macs
built ten years ago can still be upgraded to all but the very latest Mac operating
systems. That sure isn’t the case with many other computers, including Intel-
compatible PCs. But eventually you may need to take a look at your system and
determine whether or not you should try to upgrade it now or just buy a new one.
Note This section assumes you know a bit about the different processors and other tech-
. nologies your Mac is based on. If numbers like PowerPC 601 and 68040 are foreign
^ to you, read about them in Chapter 2, "Figure Out Your Mac."
Here are some starting points:
^ How old is your computer? You’re either satisfied with an older Mac or you’re
not. If you’re not, you can do only a certain number of things with it before
buying a new Macintosh. In the Mac world, the term old can apply to two
different types of setups. The first is a computer based on a 68030 (or earlier)
processor. That includes most of the Mac Classics, Mac 11 series, and LCII
10 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
series, and the even older Mac SE/30, SE, and Mac Plus series (see Figure 1-3).
Although these computers can be upgraded a bit, few of them can be
upgraded to PowerPC technology. The fastest speeds they can generally reach
were state-of-the-art around 1993. (Computers based on 68040 machines can
often be upgraded to PowerPC or better.) Certain original equipment,
PowerPC-based Power Macintosh setups make up the second type of “old”
Macintosh. If you’ve got a first generation Power Macintosh or PowerPC-
based Performa, your options may be a bit limited.
Figure 1-3: The Macintosh Plus can't be upgraded to the latest
PowerPC technology, but it can still be made into a reasonably
useful computer.
"f How upgradeable is your computer? It may sound like a silly question, but
it’s not. For instance, the Quadra 650 is an older-technology 68040-based
computer that was very popular with professionals, art firms, and corporate
graphics departments. It’s also very upgradeable, with three NuBus slots and
the ability to accept 136MB of system RAM. Apple even built a special
PowerPC Upgrade card for that Quadra. Compare that system to the Quadra
660AV, which was an amazing system for its time. With built-in audio/visual
capabilities and a special digital signal processing chip, it was the standard
for media professionals in 1994 — a late-generation 68040 Mac with Power-
Chapter 1 -f Is It Time to Upgrade? ] ]
PC-like abilities. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as upgradeable, with a fixed
amount of video RAM, room for only 68MB of system RAM, and only one
path to PowerPC: Pull the entire logic board and install a new one.
Web ^ Although 1 intend to cover the upgradeability of most models in depth throughout this
book, one way to get a quick snapshot of your system's configuration is to head to
Apple's Web site. Buried there you'll find a gem called the AppleFacts Online Archive
at http: //product . i nfo . appl e . com/ product! nf o/dat a sheets /i ndexhtml
on the Web. You can look up your current system's specifications and some of the
upgrades Apple has made available over the years, and check for a match. (If you have
a clone machine, you should check Appendix B and the included CD-ROM for links to
sites that can help you determine the upgradeability of your particular model.)
4 How much will it cost to upgrade? The basic problem with upgrading nearly
any computer is newer computers tend to be pretty cheap to begin with —
sometimes cheaper than the cost of getting your older Mac back in fighting
shape. You can always spend a little less, but make sure the money you’re
spending is contributing to either satisfaction of the 75/25 rule or staving off
insanity until you get a large enough windfall to buy a new Mac. Otherwise,
you might as well squirrel that money away at 4 percent interest and save up
for a new computer.
4^ How happy will you be with an upgraded system? It’s not just the shiny chrome
and the new tires — there’s a good chance you really will be more productive
with a new machine. If you look at all your options and realize you’re just not
getting the bang for your upgrading buck — or if you think all your current
equipment is too dingy and you want some of that new stuff — you should
probably start shopping the computer stores or some of the Mac-oriented
Web-based stores.
Web
With all that in mind, it’s important to decide what exactly you need to upgrade,
about how much it’ll cost, and whether or not it’ll be worth it. If you decide it is a
good idea to upgrade, just keep 01’ Faithful computing. If you decide to buy a new
system, continue reading to arm yourself with some valuable tips on what
components are important in your Mac and what to look for while you’re shopping.
Don't forget, there's a thriving aftermarket for used Macs sold among individuals.
Check your local classifieds, the America Online Mac classified message boards (if
you're an AOL member), or type news : comp . sys . mac . wanted in your Usenet
message group reader program or your Web browser. If you need to know how much
a system Is really worth, check out the American Computer Exchange's regular listings
at WWW . amcoex . com on the Web.
1 2 Psrt I 4 - Getting Ready to Upgrade
The What and Why of Upgrades
Before you can decide what upgrades are right for you — and how much they
cost — you need to know a little about the different upgrades that are even possible
with most Mac models. In this section, you’ll look closely at the different reasons to
upgrade your computer, and then you’ll see many of the specific upgrade tasks that
can be performed, including:
4* Software upgrades
4 Upgrading for increased speed
> Enhancing your productivity with upgrades
4 Doing more things with your Mac
Great places to shop for Mac stuff on the Web
other good stops may pop up along the way, but I find myself regularly visiting all the fol-
lowing Web sites in my constant pursuit of the perfect peripheral. At these sites you're
bound to find plenty of great supplies, accessories, and, if necessary, new Power Macs and
PowerBooks;
4 The Apple Store (http: / /store, apple, com) — Some call it the "Great
Configurator" because it's so much fun to shop the site for great systems and
components, and then head back to the other Web stores, where they are cheaper.
4 Club Mac (www . cl ub - mac . com) - A fairly consistent player in the Mac-Web market
so far. Club Mac really does feel like a club, of sorts, especially when you sign up for
their weekly e-mail sales sheet. Plus, they often have great prices, discounts, and
closeouts.
4 Cyberian Outpost (www. cyberi an . com)— A complete resource for software,
books, accessories, Macs, and peripherals. Another good place to shop, Cyberian
Outpost is known for its "Coming Soon" lists, long rosters of not-yet-released
products that have been announced by their manufacturers.
4 Other World Computing (www.macsales .com) -This site has been improving its
look and feel for quite a while now, but you often can't beat Other World for great
prices on Macs, PowerBooks, and other equipment. It's a no-frills kind of Web site,
but that's part of what makes it fun.
Chapter 1 4 ^ Is It Time to Upgrade? 1 3
Keep in mind that your particular model may not be able to handle every type of
upgrade outlined in this section, although nearly every Macintosh model offers
some level of upgrading ability that can improve performance and capabilities.
Obviously most of what you'll see in this section is just the tip of the iceberg; if any of
these upgrades confuse you or if you'd like to learn more about them, check out the
chapters in Part II of this book. In those chapters, you'll find details for nearly every
imaginable upgrade (and how most Mac systems can benefit).
Is your problem a hardware or a software issue?
Although most folks automatically assume upgrading requires buying new
hardware for their computers, that’s not always the case. In some instances, it’s
perfectly possible that a quick software fix will speed up your computer or
otherwise give it a little more life. But how do you know if your problems can be
addressed with a software fix? Here are some guidelines:
4 ^ You haven Y upgraded the Macintosh operating system in quite some time. The
Mac OS (or System, as it used to be called) is responsible for all the
computing and interaction between the various components of your Mac. As
newer versions have come out, Apple’s engineers have occasionally made
improvements that increased the performance of older Mac hardware.
Assuming you have enough RAM to support the system update — and your
system hasn’t aged beyond the support of the latest Mac OS (only a few have)
— you might seriously consider updating the operating system before doing
anything else. (This is discussed in more depth in Chapter 31.)
4 - You haven*t checked for system-specific updaters. Apple has to make little
tweaks to the Mac OS for every single Macintosh computer model it creates.
Sometimes, Apple improves those tweaks or releases new ones as bugs are
found or new capabilities are created. In these cases, it’s often up to you to
find the updates and apply them yourself. The best way to start is to head
over to v/wv/. appl e . com/support where Apple has posted updated files on
the Web. (This is also discussed in Chapter 31.)
Here's one that people miss a lot. If you have a GeoPort-style modem (or any modem
that you bought directly from Apple), Apple tends to post the upgrades for the
modem software on the Support Web site just listed. Apple also includes them on
upgrades to the Mac OS. Believe it or not, you may be able to use a software upgrade
to increase your modem speed for free. (See Chapter 16 for a lot more on modems
and GeoPort adapters.)
4 You haven Y checked for new device drivers in a while. For many of the
peripherals your Mac uses — such as the printer, scanner, and modem —
special software drivers are loaded as extensions and/or Control Panels that
help your Mac communicate with those devices. Over time, the manufacturers
of those devices will often release new versions of the drivers that can
1 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
improve reliability and speed, or even add (or activate) new features. Check
the Web sites or call the customer-support lines of the manufacturers of your
peripherals to check for possible updates.
4 You haven’t updated your applications in a while. Again, many applications go
through completely free update versions intended to improve performance,
fix problems, and add new features. These aren’t always heavily publicized, so
you should stop by the Web sites put up by the publishers of your favorite
(and/or most often used) software programs.
’f You have a Power Macintosh and some older programs you use a lot. When
Apple switched to the PowerPC processor in Power Macs, it built in the ability
to use the same programs that older Macs — such as Mac Ils and LCs and
Quadras — had been using. However, these programs don’t run very fast on
PowerPC computers, because they aren’t optimized for the new CPU. Instead,
the Power Mac emulates an old-style 68040 Mac, which slows everything
down (at least, relative to running PowerPC-based applications — the latest
Power Macs still run 68040 applications faster than the original 68040
machines). To avoid this, you need to upgrade older software applications
that weren’t optimized for PowerPC when you got them. Upgrading some of
them will be free — just consult the publisher’s Web site. Others may charge
for the privilege, but it’s a great way to get better performance from a
PowerPC.
^ You do a lot of copying from one hard drive to another. Using some third-party
utilities, it’s possible to make your file copies run smoother and more
efficiently. For instance, SpeedDoubler, a utility package from Connectix,
increases copying speeds by more effectively using free RAM. Of course, Mac
OS 8 and above also feature improved copying speeds, so it may just take
upgrading to the latest version of the OS to see an improvement.
> Your only real problem is you don 7 have enough RAM to run more programs at
once. Most Macs using System 7.0 and above (and certain, late versions of
System 6.0jc) have the built-in ability to run more than one program at once, a
capability called multitasking. The problem is each program needs its own
fixed amount of RAM memory in which to run. Often hardware presents the
solution — you need to install more RAM. And RAM can be pretty cheap these
days. In some cases, though, it might be more useful to use Connectix’s
RAMDoubler, a program that causes your Mac to believe it has more RAM
than it really does. This enables you to run more small programs at one time
than you otherwise might be able to. It’s not recommended for slower Macs,
but if all you want to do is work with one or two more programs on a faster
Mac, it might solve the problem. (See Chapter 6 for more on RAM upgrades
and RAMDoubler.)
Chapter 1 Is It Time to Upgrade? ] 5
How do I know what version 1 have?
If you're following some of these suggestions for upgrading software, you may have noticed
that many of the ideas require you to compare the version of a piece of software you cur-
rently have to any new versions that might be available. But how do you find out which ver-
sion you have?
There are three basic ways to figure out what version you have of a program or driver soft-
ware. The first way makes use of the Get Info command in the Mac's Finder. Find the pro-
gram, extension, or Control Panel for which you need to know the version number. Next,
use the FileOGet Info command. In the Get Info dialog box that results, you should see the
version number of that particular program (see Figure 1-4).
The second way to determine the version number of most applications is to start the pro-
gram itself. Next, from the Apple menu — in the top-left corner of the screen — select the
About command. (The command's name actually changes for each program, so the com-
mand for Microsoft Word would be About Microsoft Word.) In the resulting alert box, you'll
see the version number of the program (see Figure 1-5). You can usually click the OK but-
ton or just click the alert itself to return to the program.
The third option? Look at the floppy disk or CD-ROM that the program came on. You'll often
find the version number printed on it. This method is low-tech, granted, but it often works
like a charm.
Version number
Figure 1-4: The Get Info command enables you
to determine the version number of a particular
Mac program or extension.
] 0 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
Version number
ClarisW)rks*
Cr*«l«a Roti«f-t A H««m Sc«tt
«nth ScoK Lndsey Tom Hotco
AcctWrotH for Po>»or Koeintosh
I Info I I credits | | ]|| OK 1
Figure 1-5: Another option for finding version numbers is to view
the program's About box.
Knowing all these things can help you in the first part of your upgrade quest —
deciding whether your problem is hardware or software. The best place to begin
(usually because it’s the cheapest) is scouting the Web and other resources (such
as America Online, local Mac user groups, your local library or university, or even a
Mac guru you may know) for updates to your system software, drivers, and any
applications you use frequently. You may also find programs such as SpeedDoubler
and RAMDoubler help you get through a rough patch in your upgrading plans, at
least for the time being. But if all this comes to nothing, or if you’re sure your
software is already up-to-date, your problem may be on another front — hardware.
One of the main reasons to upgrade the hardware in your Macintosh is to simply
speed it up. That can mean a lot of things — you’ll need to know a little about the
specific slowdown before you can identify what about your computer needs to be
upgraded. In general, though, a computer needs a speed boost when it takes a long
time to load programs, spends quite a while preparing to print a document, drives
you crazy while you wait for a new Web page to come up — anything like this.
Usually, these sorts of problems can be fixed.
I’ll begin by discussing some of the components of an aging Mac that tend to slow
down the system, and what you can do to upgrade or otherwise improve those
speeds. Chapter 2 discusses the actual workings of these items, but for now 1 just
want you to be aware of the different options you have for increasing the speed and
performance of your Mac.
Speed up your Mac
Chapter 1 4- Is It Time to Upgrade? ]
4- Memory. Believe it or not, the RAM memory in your computer can be the
most important upgrade you make to increase the speed of your computer.
Not only is it an easy upgrade, but it’s also relatively inexpensive. IVe seen
posters that said, “You can never be too thin or have too much RAM.” It’s true
(at least, the part about RAM). Adding a few megabytes of RAM can really free
up your computer to do more things while speeding everything up a little bit.
Chapter 6 discusses your RAM needs in depth.
4 Processor, One of the main reasons your computer might slow down is the
processor, or Central Processing Unit (CPU). It’s here that everything is
calculated — from what should be drawn on the screen to how to calculate a
formula in a spreadsheet, how to change the spacing of text in a desktop
publishing document to how to change the direction of an enemy plane in a
flight simulation game. If these calculations seem slow, it might be time to
upgrade the processor. In many Macs, the processor can be easily upgraded.
Nearly all modern Power Macs include some sort of upgrading solution, as do
many older Macs. Not all Macs are easily upgraded; you’ll need to find out
about your specific setup. Most of them are detailed in Chapter 6.
4 Logic board. The logic board, or main circuit board, is the control center of
your Mac, and may be worth upgrading in certain situations (especially when
you move from Quadra-level Mac to Power Mac). In this sort of upgrade, you
generally also get a faster processor; in fact, almost everything speeds up a
little bit. This is a good upgrade because it essentially gives you a new
computer, but at the same time enables you to keep the hard drive, video
cards, and anything else you may have invested in significantly. The down
side: Logic boards can be really tough to install. Additionally, upgrading the
logic board can be expensive. (See Chapter 5 for details on the logic board.)
4 Hard drive. An older hard drive can slow down a lot of things — loading
programs, saving data, even playing QuickTime movies and multimedia games
— because the computer wastes time trying to retrieve the data before it can
compute and show you the results. Fast, new hard drives are especially
important to graphics and multimedia professionals, because they’re the folks
who tend to save the largest files. However, even home users and gamers can
benefit from faster hard drives.
4 Modem. In a home office or small business, you probably use a modem to
connect to the outside world and the Internet. Modems are all about speed —
some fairly speedy modems are available, and you need them for a high-
quality Internet experience. Even America Online users can benefit from a
faster modem.
4 Networking. If you already have your Macs networked, you can get a big
speed boost by changing the type of hardware you use for your network. A lot
of Macs still use LocalTalk — the basic telephone-wire-and-printer-port
networking that Macs have always had. Move up to Ethernet, though, and
you’ll see an extreme difference. In special situations, you might even
consider Fast Ethernet, which can really move files quickly.
18 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 Video. If you work with complicated drawings and paint images on the
computer screen, you may be well served with a new video card. Many new
cards are designed with tons of memory to display millions of colors, along
with special 2D and 3D acceleration capabilities, which enables them to draw
images on the screen more quickly. You can also get specialty cards designed
to help you render 3D Images and add effects to video more quickly.
4 Printing. Move up from an inkjet (or a dot matrix) printer to a laser printer,
and you’ll see a speed boost. Or, if you already have a laser printer, you can
get a faster laser printer (especially if you’ve added computers to your
workgroup) or connect your networked laser printer via Ethernet instead of
LocalTalk networking hardware.
Improve your productivity
Obviously, you’ll probably be increasing your productivity if you speed up your
Mac. But that’s not the only way to increase productivity. You can also add
interesting and sometimes unique products to your machine that will help you do
things with your computer that you haven’t done before, perhaps making you more
efficient or productive. For example:
4 Telephony and Internet. Using certain modem and telephone upgrades, you
can integrate your computer with your telephone, enabling you to track calls,
take messages, get CallerlD information, and automatically add callers to a
database of contacts. Access to the Internet or online services can often save
a trip to the library when it’s time to research current events or check the
address of a contact.
4 Scanning. Adding a scanner to your computer can increase productivity in a
number of ways: You can scan documents for electronic storage (making them
easier to retrieve than paper-based files), you can scan text and use optical
character recognition to translate the scan into a word processing document,
or you can scan documents for faxing directly from your computer (thereby
saving the cost of a fax machine and avoid the time wasted by standing over
the machine to feed pages).
4 Printers and Accessories. The faster the printer, the more productive you
might be. But what about color? Having a color printer, a printer capable of
legal-sized pages, or even a printer with an envelope-feeder could increase
your ability to be productive with your computer.
4 Input Devices. A new keyboard, more comfortable mouse, or pen-based input
device can help anyone be more productive with their Macs.
4 Backup/Storage Devices. The worst way to lower your productivity levels is
to lose documents and have to recreate them because you didn’t save them
on a backup device. To stay productive with your Mac, you must implement a
Chapter 1 > Is it Time to Upgrade? ] 0
strong backup plan. That usually involves upgrading your system to include a
removable media drive such as a tape drive or a Zip drive. You can also toss
in some backup software to help you keep on top of your backup needs.
-f Networking. If you’ve got a couple of Macs in your office, being able to share
files and print to a high-speed printer without swapping floppy disks or Zip
disks can be a major boon to productivity, because it keeps you planted in
your seat while you work. (Of course, you should still get up and stretch
occasionally.)
Do more things with your Mac
This last category of things to do with your Mac may or may not enable you to be
productive. Some Mac users report they’ve gotten into completely new businesses
because they started playing with their Mac one day. (I know Web designers and
Mac programmers who started out that way.) And, you might also want to add
some hardware to your Mac that’s designed for nothing more than having fun
with it.
Here are some upgrades that add capability to your Mac:
4 Multimedia. This can be for work or for play. Card upgrades enable you to
save digital video to your hard drive so you can edit the video and send it
back out to a VCR as an edited presentation. Or, you can add 3D cards for
rendering images, special accelerators for gaming, and surround-sound
speaker systems. Of course, plenty of joysticks and weapon control systems
are available for adding realism to the gaming experience.
4 DOS and Windows emulation. A number of hardware solutions enable you to
install an actual Intel (or clone company) processor inside your Mac. With a
quick keystroke combination, you can switch between Windows (or DOS) and
the Mac OS — in fact, both can be running simultaneously. This can be
productive, too — especially if your company has some Windows-only
programs you need to run. Or, it can be strictly for gaming. PowerMacs can
even run software-only solutions (such as VirtualPC or SoftWindows) that give
them similar capabilities at lower cost. And, yes, most of these solutions can
run Windows 95, as shown in Figure 1-6.
4 PowerBooks. Upgrades for the PowerBook run the gamut, from docks that
make it simple to plug your PowerBook into a full-size monitor and keyboard
to PC Card expansion cards that make short work of adding modems and
Ethernet to your notebook. In addition, some PowerBooks can be upgraded
with new processors (the PowerBook 500 can even be upgraded to a PowerPC
processor!), and most of them can accept new RAM, external CD-ROM drives,
and removable media.
20 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
^ CD-ROM and DVD-ROM. Speaking of CD-ROM and DVD-ROM drives, if you
don’t have one, you’ve got to change that situation. Most new programs come
on CD-ROM, and having a CD-ROM drive (any CD-ROM drive) makes upgrading
your software, your Mac OS, or your utilities much easier than using floppy
disks to do the same thing. Plus, tons of cool programs, clip art galleries,
sound clips, shareware libraries, and even more serious stuff (law libraries
and magazine archives, for example) are available on CD-ROM. The best titles
are also being released on DVD-ROM media, which allow for even more data to
be stored, including video and audio for full-length movies and realistic
multimedia software.
So, that’s what upgrading means, and that’s what’s possible with a little cash and
some know-how. 1 hope you’ve decided you’re ready to tackle cin upgrade that’s
been haunting you for a while — or maybe you’ve come across some new ideas that
will add to your Mac experience. If either is the case, you’re ready to move on to
Chapter 2, which discusses how your Mac works and what everything in your
Mac does.
| 0 >:|
•Doc...
:^25Fm "
mi
Figure 1-6: That's right ... if you absolutely have to, you can run Windows 95
applications on many Mac models.
Chapter 1 -f Is It Time to Upgrade? 2 1
Summary
"f When do you upgrade your Mac? When it’s driving you crazy. Even if you’re
on a budget, your Mac should perform at least 75 percent of its tasks quickly,
flawlessly, and in a pleasing way. It can struggle a bit with the other 25
percent, but if it has more trouble than that, it’s time to upgrade.
-f You probably need a Mac setup that is different from what many other people
might need. Whoever you are, you’re special, and your Mac should reflect
that. Get to know all your upgrade options so you can make an informed
choice.
4“ Upgrading and repair doesn’t just refer to the nuts and bolts of your Mac — it
can mean upgrading your software and your Mac’s operating system, too. In
fact, a lot of improvements can be accomplished for very little money by
installing free upgrades and patches on your Mac’s hard drive.
4 There are many different reasons to upgrade your Mac, including gaining
computing speed, increasing your productivity, and doing more things with
your computer.
Figure Out Your
Mac
B efore you can upgrade and/or repair your Mac, it is
helpful to know a little about how your Mac works. If
you’re already up-to-speed on your Mac’s innards, feel free to
skim this chapter and move right on to Chapter 3. If you’re
more of an intermediate user, and you luiven’t quite learned
everything there is to know about a Mac’s hardware, you can
delve a bit deeper into those topics here; this will make the
terminology a bit easier to stomach when you get around to
upgrading and troubleshooting your Mac in upcoming
chapters.
How Your Mac Computes
You may have been clicking and typing away for years on your
Mac without ever really wondering what process is
underneath that makes everything happen. You press a key,
for instance, and most of the time a character shows up on the
screen. You choose Save from a program’s menu, and an open
file is stashed away for use some other day. Fire up America
Online or your Web browsing program, and somehow your
modem (or network connection) manages to talk to a distant
computer and exchange information.
So how does all this work?
Your Mac can be seen as three different subsystems working
together to make everything happen that needs to happen.
Each of these subsystems communicate data back and forth at
amazing speed, making the operating of your computer
appear seamless. These subsystems are as follows:
4- Processing. The processing subsystem is the brains
of the system, ultimately responsible for all the
computations your Mac makes to display things on the
screen. These computations might include recalculating
an average in a spreadsheet, deciding how to rotate a
4 - 4 ^ > >
In This Chapter
How does a Mac
compute?
The processor and
memory revealed
How your Mac stores
data for long-term use
Input and output —
keyboards, mice, and
other ways to get
data into your Mac
Communicating with
MS-DOS and
Windows
4 - 4 ^ > 4 ^
24 Part I ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
3D object in a game program, or determining the correct spacing for a
particular font face and kerning setting in a desktop publishing program.
4“ Input/Output This subsystem is responsible for communicating with human
beings and the outside world. It includes devices such as a keyboard, mouse,
digital drawing tablet, modem, monitor, network interface, or printer. Any of
these devices is designed either to get information into the computer (like a
keyboard) or to send information from the computer (like a printer).
> Storage. All Macs also have a subsystem that is responsible for storing
relevant data so that it might be used again. Storage devices include floppy
drives, hard disk drives, CD-ROM drives. Zip drives, SyQuest drives, and
anything else that can store data in a permanent way. The storage subsystem
then keeps track of the Mac OS, your applications, and any data files or
documents that you specifically save while you’re working.
Take, for instance, the process of starting up ClarisWorks (or AppleWorks, if you
have a newer version), opening a saved document, and working with that
document. Doing so involves all three subsystems, which work together to create
the experience, as follows:
1. You begin by using the mouse (input/output) to double-click the ClarisWorks
icon in the Finder.
2. The Finder, on receiving this command, decides how it will load ClarisWorks
(processing). ClarisWorks is found on the hard drive (storage) and started.
3. You then choose the Open command (input/output), and ClarisWorks
responds by bringing up a dialog box (processing). The file you choose is
loaded from the hard drive (storage). You then edit it using the keyboard
(input/output and processing).
4. Finally, you choose the Print command (input/output), ClarisWorks creates a
printer image (processing) and sends the image to the printer, which prints
the document (input/output).
This description could go on forever, but you get the point. Essentially, these three
subsystems work together to enable you to get data into and out of the computer
so you can get work done, as shown in Figure 2-1.
Chapter 2 Figure Out Your Mac 2 5
Mac's Subsystems Working Together
Figure 2-1: I/O peripherals, the processor subsystem, and storage devices
all work together to help your Mac compute.
Within each subsystem are various components important to the function of that
particular subsystem. In fact, many, many different components can exist in your
Mac, more than I’ll have space to discuss in this chapter. Throughout the rest of
the book, however, I cover nearly all the components you are able to install in
your Mac.
Ultimately, upgrading your Mac requires digging into each subsystem and replacing
various components. What you’ll find, though, is it’s important to look at each
subsystem as a whole, making sure you’re upgrading in the most efficient way. To
do that, you’ll need to understand the internal workings of each subsystem.
Processor and Memory
The first subsystem I’ll discuss is the processing system, which comprises the
central processing unit (CPU), Random Access Memory (RAM), and other types of
memory, such as cache RAM, you may have installed in your system. These three
components work in concert to perform all of the data manipulation your Mac
undertakes.
26 Part I 'f Getting Ready to Upgrade
The CPU
At the heart of any computer is the CPU, which is ultimately responsible for
processing all of the data the computer deals with. In your Mac, the CPU is a
relatively small, square computer chip that sits directly on the logic board — the
main circuit board in your Mac’s computer. (Actually, some Mac’s CPUs are
installed on daughtercards, which are smaller circuit boards that plug into the main
logic board. This is discussed in more depth in Chapter 6.) Figure 2-2 shows a logic
board and CPU.
Figure 2-2: A Macintosh logic board (a Performa 6200 series board)
The CPU is the brain of your Mac, enabling it to perform mathematical operations,
reorder data, or step through logical processes that, when taken together, add up to
something useful in a computer application.
Plenty of Mac owners refer to their Mac's entire case and power supply (the box with
switches and disk drive openings built in) as their Mac's "CPU." This isn't exactly accu-
rate, as the CPU is actually just a little chip that's attached to the Mac's logic board.
You can still call it that, but it's probably more accurate to say, "I'm going to install a
new hard drive in my Mac's case," than it is to say, "I'm going to install a new hard
drive in my Mac's CPU."
If you actually planned to install something in the CPU, you'd need much, much
smaller tools.
Chapter 2 -f Figure Out Your Mac 27
CPU speed
One of the foremost concerns most owners have with their CPU is gauging the
speed at which it runs. Two different factors contribute to the speed of a CPU. One
of those factors is the megahertz speed of the CPU’s clock.
The speed at which a particular CPU computes is governed by a quartz clock
crystal that is installed on the logic board. This crystal oscillates at a given
frequency, in megahertz, acting as a timing mechanism for the CPU. As long as two
processors are basically the same internally, you can compare their speeds by
comparing their megahertz (MHz) levels, for example, a 68030 running at 25MHz is
slightly slower than a 68030 running at 33MHz.
But you can’t just compare two completely different CPUs by their megahertz
speeds. For instance, a Macintosh running a 68030 processor at 33MHz would not
be faster than a 68040 running at 25MHz, because the 68040 is a more advanced
processor, capable of many more instructions than a 68030 at the same (or even at
a slightly lower) megahertz level.
Note
The Motorola 680x0 family ranges from the 68000 processor (the original Mac and
Mac Plus) to the 68040 processor (Quadras and Centris models), with stops at 68020
(Mac II) and 68030 (SE/30, Mac llx, and others) along the way. Each series got pro-
gressively faster, even at the same megahertz level.
CPU architecture
The Macintosh OS has actually run on two different series of CPUs. While the Mac
OS itself is backward compatible (meaning the current Mac OS can run most of the
programs that have ever been written for older Mac OS versions), the two different
series of processors are not compatible.
4* The Motorola 680x0 series. From the first Macintosh model (the Mac 128K)
through the powerful and popular Quadra and PowerBook 500 series, the
Motorola 680x0 processors reigned supreme. These processors were based on
Complex Instruction Set Computing (CISC) architecture, a popular way to
build microprocessors in the 1970s and 1980s. By comparison, the Intel x86
family of processors (including the Pentium processors, to a degree) also use
CISC architecture.
Ifs not a hard-and-fast rule, but Motorola processors are generally referred to (when
iiS t>y last three numbers, each digit read individually, as in "Oh-Four-Oh"
when discussing a 68040. (You'll also hear it said "Oh-Forty.") If you wanted to
include the megahertz level of the processor, you could say, "I have a 25 megahertz
oh-four-oh in my Quadra," and come off sounding like a pro.
28 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 The IBM/Motorola PowerPC series. Starting in early 1994, Apple introduced
a new line of CPUs to their customers — the PowerPC processors built by
Motorola and IBM. Based on the more advanced Reduced Instruction Set
Computing (RISC) architecture, these chips were able to run faster than the
older Motorola series. Additionally, Apple has been able to increase the
abilities of new PowerPC chips in an exponential fashion, going from 60MHz
processors to 300MHz processors (and beyond) in about four years’ time.
Like the 680x0 series, the PowerPC has also been through a few different iterations.
Each new numbered series has made improvements on the former, in most cases
including a boost in speed. Table 2-1 shows how the currently available PowerPC
processors stack up.
Table 2-1
PowerPC Processors Used in Mac OS Computers
PowerPC Processor Megahertz Range
Improvements
601
60- 120MHz
Original PowerPC chip
603/603e
75-300MHZ
Consumes less power, slightly faster
than 601
604/604e
120-350MHZ
Faster than 601, 603; 604e is low-
power
740/750
233-300 (and above)MHz
Low-power, faster than 601, 603, 604
Note that the PowerPC 740 and PowerPC 750 processors are generally referred to
by Apple as the G3 processors, presumably meaning third generation.
Apple's transition to PowerPC
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Apple recognized a growing need in the future of
Macintosh computers. The Motorola 680x0 architecture, on which Apple had relied for
years, wasn’t getting much faster. It was taking a long time for newer, exciting processors to
come out— so long that Apple was concerned the/d lose customers to the Intel standard.
So they reconfigured Macs to use a completely new and exciting chip designed jointly by
Motorola and IBM, with a little help from Apple.
But the new PowerPC architecture created some interesting challenges for Apple. Because
the PowerPC was completely different from the old Motorola chips, regular Mac software -
even the Mac OS -wouldn’t run on PowerPC chips. For programs to run on the PowerPC
Chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 29
architecture; which is a completely different type of processor from the older Motorola
680x0 chips, Apple had to rewrite the Mac OS so it would do two things.
First; the new PowerPC-enabled Mac OS had to run applications that were specially rewrit-
ten to take advantage of the fast PowerPC processor architecture. These are called native
applications, because the/re written specifically for the PowerPC processor that's native to
a Power Macintosh. (If you were a Mac owner around 1994, you might have heard a lot
about "Made for PowerMac" and "PowerPC Native" software.)
Second, Apple enabled older applications to run on the new PowerPC machines in an emu-
lation mode. In essence, the Apple team rewrote the Mac OS so that it could. If necessary,
pretend the PowerPC processor was actually one of the older Motorola chips. That is, older
programs could be fooled into running correctly.
The only caveat: Emulating the old chip is slow. Even on newer Power Macs, it's always rec-
ommended that you upgrade any 680x0-style programs to a PowerPC-native version. The
speed improvement is very noticeable.
Main memory
The CPU isn’t the only component in the processing subsystem. An important
part of this process involves the RAM installed in your Mac. RAM is one of the
places in which the processor keeps documents and application data that is
currently being processed. The CPU can’t process everything simultaneously, so
important stuff is put into a holding pattern until the processor is ready.
In this way, computer memory is a lot like human memory — at least, short-term
human memory. Things you remember for a long time, like a bygone birthday or
your high school graduation, are events that would be more appropriate for a
computer’s storage subsystem; things need to be written to a storage device, like a
hard drive, if a computer is expected to "remember” it for a long time.
But RAM, on the other hand, is the short-term memory of a computer. For instance,
everything you see at any given time on your computer screen is actually in RAM —
as is a good portion of the document you’re working on in a word processing
program or the image you’re editing in Photoshop. I^M is a repository of space
that’s used by the processor to keep track of current data the processor needs for
the task at hand.
That’s why adding RAM can significantly boost the performance of your computer.
The reason? RAM is much faster than any storage option — even a high-speed hard
drive. The more RAM (short-term memory) your Mac has, the less it has to access
the hard drive (long-term memory) to fetch an important piece of data. Every time
your computer stops to check something on the hard drive, it slows things down a
bit. The more RAM you have, the less this speed bump shows up.
30 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
The RAM module
So what is RAM? Physically, RAM is usually a collection of chips, called DRAMs
(for Dynamic Random Access Memory), placed on a module that can then be easily
installed in a RAM socket on the logic board of your Mac. The module, depending
on its design, is either a Single Inline Memory Module (SIMM) or a Dual Inline
Memory Module (DIMM) (see Figure 2-3). SIMMs have been the standard with
nearly all Mac models since the Macintosh Plus (the first Mac with upgradeable
memory) was first introduced. DIMMs are relative newcomers, common only on
high-end PowerPC 604 and PowerPC 750 (and above) Macs.
Figure 2-3: On top, a SIMM; below, a DIMM
RAM modules are designed to be easily added to a Mac’s logic board, allowing the
amount of RAM to be flexible to your needs — although there are limits for most
Mac models. PowerBooks are the exception; they generally don’t use standard
SIMM or DIMM designs, but each particular PowerBook model requires particular
upgrade modules.
Nearly every Mac model has slightly different RAM requirements. You’ll want to
check your manual carefully and read Chapter 6 in this book before buying RAM for
your system; depending on the model, your Mac may not be able to accept
additional RAM. If you can add RAM, though, it tends to be one of the easiest
upgrades to accomplish (see Figure 2-4), and the additional RAM can have a
significant impact on the performance of your computer.
chapter 2 > Figure Out Your Mac 3 1
Figure 2-4: A RAM SIMM being installed in a free SIMM socket. This
is usually all it takes to add RAM to your Mac.
Measuring RAM
RAM is measured in megabytes (MB), each of which represent roughly millions of
bytes. A byte is the amount of computer memory necessary to store one text
character, like the letter g. Millions of bytes, then, represent millions of characters.
Kilobytes (K), or thousands of bytes, is also an important measurement in computing,
but not so much when discussing system RAM. (Ifs been over a decade since a viable
computer had less than one megabyte of system RAM.) Other types of RAM (dis-
cussed a bit later in this chapter) are measured in kilobytes, however.
In general, SIMMs are available in increments of 1MB. Common SIMM sizes include
1-, 2-, 4-, 8-, 16-, 32-, 64-, and 128MB modules.
other memory
Aside from short-term computational needs, your computer uses RAM for a couple
of other purposes. In fact, your Mac usually has more than one set of RAM modules,
with modules designed for different purposes aside from the main system memory.
One of those purposes, video RAM, is discussed later in the “Input and Output”
section of this chapter. Another use for RAM, called cache memory, is an important
part of most modern Mac processing subsystems.
32 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
I mentioned before that having a sufficient amount of RAM can speed up your
system. Any time the computer can’t find data in RAM, it has to seek it out on the
hard drive, which slows everything down. Adding RAM makes your Mac less likely
to consult the hard drive, making operations proceed more smoothly.
Cache memory takes that theory one step further. Just as a squirrel might have a
cache of nuts close by for easy consumption in the winter, many modern Macintosh
processors take advantage of a bit of cache RAM that holds frequently needed data,
making it available at a moment’s notice. This cache RAM is usually a higher speed
than common system RAM, and it uses sophisticated mathematical formulas to
attempt to determine what data will be necessary for the processor’s next
functions. When the processor is forced to consult standard RAM for data, the
process is somewhat slower than when it consults cache RAM. So, every hit, or
successful cache RAM prediction, speeds the computer a bit more.
Cache RAM is also much more expensive than typical system RAM — usually three
to five times more expensive. That’s why it’s used more sparingly. Where you might
have 64MB of RAM for your main system, you might only have 1MB of cache RAM.
Types of cache
To add to the overall complication, there are actually a few different types, or
levels, of cache memory:
4* Level 1. Level 1 cache is a small bit of memory — usually 8 or 16 kilobytes —
that sits on the processor chip itself. This memory is used by the processor to
hold the very next instructions and/or data that will be needed so the flow of
data isn’t impeded by slower forms of RAM.
4 Level 2. Level 2 cache is a larger amount of very high-speed RAM — between
256 kilobytes and 2 megabytes — that acts as a buffer between the processor’s
on-board cache and the system’s main RAM. Level 2 is usually a module of
faster, more expensive RAM. In many newer Macs, it can be added or
upgraded to increase performance. Level 2 cache RAM is often added using a
specially designed module that plugs Into the Mac’s logic board.
*4 Level 3, Level 3 cache only shows up in the rare system, although it’s
becoming a bit more common. Level 3 cache is really identical to level 2
cache — a high-speed RAM module on the logic board. The difference is level
3 cache refers to this type of RAM only when another level 2 cache module
is also present. This happens most often with PowerPC 750 and similar
processors that feature level 2 cache on the processor daughtercard. If both
types of cache are present, the cache on the logic board is level 3. (Level 3
cache is rarely useful and most often disabled when a new level 2 source is
installed in an upgradeable Mac.)
Chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 3 3
What is backside cache?
With the popularity of the PowerPC 750 has come a new type of cache memory that has
entered the Mac maven's lexicon — backside cache. So, whafs the difference?
You already know that traditional level 2 cache RAM is a very fast memory module designed
to hold data that the computer believes the processor will be using over and over again —
thus cutting down on relatively slow requests to the system RAM for new data. Backside
cache works the same way (and, in fact, is also level 2 cache), but if s even faster.
Whereas regular level 2 cache lives on the motherboard, backside cache lives on a special
daughtercard, right next to the processor. In fact, both the processor and the cache are on
their own separate memory bus, enabling them to transfer data at very high speeds — usu-
ally between 50 percent and 100 percent of the processor's clock speed. (So, a 300MHz
processor might have a backside cache that runs between 150 and 300MHz.) This makes
accessing a backside cache much quicker than accessing a traditional level 2 cache, which
is limited to the speed of the system bus (40-83MHz or so).
storing Data on Your Mac
One of your Mac upgrade priorities is likely its storage capabilities — that is,
the ability to save information, applications, and data that you use in your daily
computing. Although your system’s hard drive is the most obvious form of storage
in your Mac, you might need to upgrade or augment others as well. In many cases
you’ll know when you need a new storage solution: Either you’re unable to store
as many applications and data files as you need to store, or you’re having a lot of
trouble storing and transporting files between locations, service bureaus, or among
friends and colleagues. In that case, you’ll want to know your options and upgrade
your Mac to handle your current storage requirements.
Types of storage
Although your Mac likely came with a floppy disk drive and a hard drive (and
perhaps a CD-ROM drive), you certainly have other options to consider. Before you
can decide exactly how to add storage to your machine, though, you need to know
what’s available. Consider the major types of storage:
> Hard drive. The hard disk drive, sometimes called a fixed disk or hard disk, is
the main storage unit for many Mac users. The hard drive is generally capable
of storing many different data and application files — both large and small —
and files on a hard drive can easily be erased and overwritten. It’s certainly
34 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
possible (and fairly easy) to add an external hard drive to your Mac, which
you could conceivably take with you and attach to another Mac, if necessary.
However, hard drives are generally considered less portable than other types
of storage.
> Floppy drive. Also called floppy disk drives, every desktop Mac model and
most PowerBooks feature a floppy drive capable of storing data on removable
floppy disks, as shown in Figure 2-5. (Actually, the disks don’t seem floppy at
all, because they feature a hard plastic shell, but the disk on the inside of the
casing is floppy.) Floppy disks are for storing a few smaller files or (in some
cases) applications. Whereas floppy disks can only store a fraction of the files
that a hard drive can handle, the floppy is much more portable and easily
exchanged with colleagues or friends.
At the time of writing Apple was just beginning to introduce Mac models that don’t
come with floppy drives, specifically the consumer-oriented iMac, In the past, only
PowerBook Duos, the PowerBook 100, and the PowerBook 2400 have been released
without built-in floppy drives, requiring an external drive to access a floppy disk.
Figure 2-5: A floppy disk being inserted into a Mac floppy drive
-f Compact Disc drives. Although the most common CD-based drives for Macs
are Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM) drives, they’re not the only
type. CD-based drives are able to store hundreds of megabytes of data that
can be retrieved at speeds fast enough to run multimedia applications —
such as showing digital video on screen. CD-ROM drives can only read that
data, however. Instead, a special drive like a CD-Recordable (CD-R) drive or a
CD-Rewritable (CD-RW) drive is necessary for storing data on a CD. CDs are
capable of around 700MB of storage and are easily transported and shared.
Chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 35
4- DVD drives. Alternatively called digital video disc and digital versatile disc,
DVD is a standard for CD-like discs that can store many, many times the
information of a standard CD. Like CD-ROM drives, most consumer DVD-ROM
drives are read-only; however, recordable drives do exist for media
professionals and others. DVDs can hold many large files and are easily
transported and shared. (Note that DVD drives require Mac OS 8.1 or greater.)
^ Removable media drives. Although in a class similar to CD and DVD
technologies, removable drives run a wider gamut of formats, capacities, and
capabilities. In general, removable media drives include an easily removed
cartridge or media container that, like a floppy disk or a CD, can be
transported and shared. Popular versions of removable media drives include
the Iomega Zip drive (shown later in Figure 2-7) and the SyQuest SyJet drive.
SyQuest is also the pioneer of older SyQuest removable technologies that are
popular with many Mac users, prepress houses, and print shops.
4 Tape drives. Although not as popular in the Mac world as in the Intel-
compatible PC industry, tape drives are still a viable alternative for users
wanting inexpensive back-up capabilities. Whereas tape is transportable and
can store quite a bit of information, it is also more difficult to deal with than
regular removable media, often using proprietary file formats. In addition,
tape drives are much slower than other removable media drives.
4- DAT and 8mm tape. These tape drives (DA7' stands for digital audio tape) are
a little different, offering large capacities and higher-speed retrieval. Although
mostly found in larger offices, these high-end tape mechanisms offer a
convenient and reasonably affordable way to back up large amounts of data
on a regular basis.
Reasons to add storage
There are a couple of reasons to upgrade your Mac’s storage capabilities, and
certain recommendations I can make based on those needs. See which category fits
you most completely:
4 - Add storage space for permanent files and applications. Sometimes you simply
run out of space on your hard drive. Upgrades to older applications tend to
require more space, and you’re constantly creating and storing data files as
you compute. In cases where a lot of storage is more important than
transportability, your best solution is usually to upgrade by adding a larger
hard drive. (You can also replace your existing drive, but desktop Macs are
very easily upgraded by simply adding a new drive.) You might also consider
a removable media drive, like the Iomega Jaz, which is capable of storing 1GB
(1,024MB) of data or more on a removable cartridge.
36 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
'f Transport files to others. Many creative Mac owners have a need to carry with
them large graphics and animation files that are to be processed by others
who specialize in preparing the files for print or media production. Business
people and professionals might have similar needs, or they might simply want
to transport their work home without lugging the computer along with it. In
these cases, a removable media drive usually serves them well, with
capacities ranging from the 100- or 200MB Zip drives to 2.5GB media and
beyond. In some cases, it can also be worthwhile to create writable or
rewritable CDs for distributing to a large organization or among friends and
coworkers.
> Back up important files. One of the most important reasons to upgrade your
storage capabilities is to add a complete back-up solution to your Mac
system. Backing up files is one of the most important tasks in a professional
or creative setting, yet not enough small and large businesses (or home
offices) have a complete, workable back-up plan. Either inexpensive tape
drives, DAT drives, or removable media drives can be useful in creating your
back-up system.
Hard drives
Hard disk drives are small, self-contained metal boxes responsible for the main
storage duties of almost every desktop and laptop Macintosh computer made. The
drives themselves contain disks, or platters, that are covered in a special coating. A
magnetized head — something like a magnetic version of a phonograph’s needle —
passes over the platter, reading and writing tiny bits of data, and then sending
those bits to the main system RAM, where it can then be processed by the CPU.
Drive capacity
Very early hard drives — those that came as add-ons to the first few Mac models —
held about 10- to 20MB. Since then, Macs have featured a variety of popular sizes,
from 40MB and 80MB to 230MB, 500MB, and even 810MB. These days, hard drives
tend to be measured in the gigabytes of data they can store; a typical new
Macintosh computer can come with hard drives that can store anywhere from two
to nine gigabytes of data, or more. Add-on drives you buy for expansion purposes
tend to offer a similar range of capacities. Hard drive technology is continually
improving, suggesting that capacities will continue spiraling up for a number of
years. Figure 2-6 shows an internal hard drive.
Drive technology
For years nearly every Mac that had a hard drive was relying on Small Computer
System Interface (SCSO technology. SCSI hard drives tend to be a bit quicker than
the alternatives, whereas the SCSI bus in Macs offers a number of interesting
expansion options. (Not only can you add hard drives, for instance, but also
scanners, CD-ROM drives, removable media drives, and other more specialized
devices, too.)
Chapter 2 ♦ Figure Out Your Mac 3 7
Figure 2-6: Atypical internal hard drive -this one came directly
from a Power Macintosh 6100.
Some modern, midrange Macs offered by Apple and a few of the clone vendors
feature Integrated Drive Electronics QDE) hard drives and internal interfaces. IDE,
a popular interface for Intel-compatible PCs, is a more inexpensive technology that
offers good performance. Most of these Macs, however, can accept external SCSI
devices for expansion purposes.
Drive speed
A number of different statistics, taken together, give you an idea of a drive’s overall
speed. These numbers are only reasonably interesting; nearly any modern hard
drive designed for SCSI- or IDE-based Macs is going to prove fast and capable
enough, as long as you buy a drive with a large enough capacity for your tastes.
There are reasons to worry over these numbers, though. The faster the drive, the
more capably it will run more storage-intensive applications, such as those for
recording digital audio and video. If you expect to make professional-caliber
QuickTime movies, for instance, you’ll want a fast drive.
Here are the specific statistics to watch for:
4- Seek time. This is the average amount of time it takes a drive to find a
particular piece of data. What’s measured here is the elapsed time, in
milliseconds, that it takes the read/write head to find data on the spinning
platter inside the drive. Seek times between 8 and 17 milliseconds are optimal.
38 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
4- RPMs. The revolutions per minute (RPMs) statistic is an important
measurement of overall speed. This number represents the speed at which
the drive’s spindle (on which the platters are mounted) spins. Speeds of 4,800
and 5,400 RPMs are typical; speeds of 9,600 RPMs or greater are generally
considered AV-rated.
Floppy drives
Every Mac, with the exception of a few mini-PowerBook models and the iMac, has a
floppy drive built right in. Depending on the age of your Mac, its floppy drive may
have certain capacities and features that differentiate it from other models’ drives,
but for the most part the drives accept 3.5" floppy disks to which they can read and
write data. Some of the differences over the years are listed here:
4- Capacity. Original Macs featured floppy drives capable of storing 400
kilobytes of data on a single disk. Later Macs (Mac 512e, Plus, and early Mac 11
series) featured double-density 800K drives capable of reading and writing
both to 400K and 800K disks. Finally, the Mac llx and up are capable of reading
and writing to high-density 1.44MB floppy disks as well as 800K and 400K
disks. (Some modern floppy drives can only read, not write to, 400K disks.)
4^ Injection. All Apple Macintosh floppy drives have an auto-eject feature, which
automatically ejects the disk from the floppy drive once the disk is no longer
needed by the Mac OS. Early Macs (up to and including some Centris and
Quadra models) offered auto-inject as well, meaning a disk would be grabbed
by the floppy drive and pulled in through its opening when placed there. Later
Quadra and all Power Macintosh models use less expensive drives that
require you to push the disk completely into the drive.
4 SuperDrive. The 1.4MB high-density drives in most Mac models are called
SuperDriues because, with the correct software (called PC Exchange, part of
the Mac OS since System 7.5), these drives are capable of reading, writing,
and formatting MS-DOS, ProDOS (Apple II), and similar formats. That makes it
possible for you to stick a DOS-formatted disk into your Mac, read data from
it, write data to it, and return it to a friend who uses an Intel-compatible
computer.
Compact disc and DVD
These removable disc drives — especially the CD-ROM drive — have become pretty
much standard issue for most modern Macs, and were optional in most new
Quadra, Centris, LCIII, and Power Mac models. As a result, CD-ROMs are becoming a
standard format for commercial software and Mac OS system software installations;
rarely do programs and updates arrive on floppy disk nowadays. For the most part,
these installations are much less time-consuming and troublesome for the user.
Chapter 2 > Figure Out Your Mac 39
enabling you to insert the CD-ROM into the drive, begin the installation program,
and move on to another task while allowing the installation to complete.
This convenience also makes CD-ROM drives a fairly important upgrade. If your
system doesn’t already feature a CD-ROM drive, adding one is certainly
recommended, especially if you plan to use your Mac for multimedia or gaming
applications, or if you need to install new applications on a fairly regular basis.
Both external and internal CD-ROM drives can be added to many systems. Most
Macintosh-oriented CD-ROM drives use SCSI technology for connecting to the Mac.
DVD drives are backward-compatible with CD-ROM drives, meaning you can insert
a disc using either CD-ROM or DVD technology and have no trouble reading it with
your Macintosh. If you expect to run games, watch commercial movies, or use
multimedia educational (or reference) titles, a DVD drive would be a good upgrade.
CD technologies
Aside from reading data from compact discs, CD-based drives have other
capabilities, each slightly different:
4“ Compact Disc-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM). These very common drives are
for reading CD-ROM material only. Most modern Macs come equipped with
these drives, enabling program CD-ROMs to be used for installations and
reference CD-ROMs to be used for data access.
4 Compact Disc-Recordable (CD-R). These drives are capable of writing data to
special CD-R media. The drives can only write data once, however, and special
software is required. The media is reasonably inexpensive, enabling you to
distribute or archive information in CD format to share with friends or
colleagues.
4- Compact Disc-Rewriteable (CD-RW). Often, drives are both CD-R and CD-RW
capable, depending on the media. CD-RW media tends to be quite a bit more
expensive, but in exchange you get the added ability to overwrite data you’ve
previously saved to the CD. This makes using the drive for backing up or
temporary archiving a more viable solution.
-f Digital Versatile Disc-Read Only Memory (DVD-ROM). As the DVD standard
emerges, the most affordable DVD drives are actually DVD-ROM drives,
capable of reading both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM media, but incapable of
writing data to either.
-f Digital Vesatile Disc-Random Access Memory (DVD-RAM). This is another
emerging standard using DVD media. In this case, the media can be written to
by your Mac.
40 Part I 'f Getting Ready to Upgrade
CD speeds
For comparison purposes, CD-ROM drives offer two important statistics —
throughput levels and seek times:
^ Throughput. CD-ROM drives measure throughput in kilobytes per second
(KBps), but in practical terms this number is usually expressed as a multiple
of audio CD speeds; for instance, a 4x, or 4 speed, drive is four times the data
throughput rate of an audio CD player. Audio CD players transmit data at 150
KBps, so a 4x drive is capable of transmitting 600 KBps. In more recent years,
the speed at which CD-ROMs are capable of transferring data has skyrocketed
to 24x and beyond. The popularity of DVD, in addition, has driven the prices
of CD-ROM drives down to the point that even the fastest made are very
inexpensive.
4 Seek time. Not often reported by the manufacturer’s marketing department,
seek time is still a reasonable gauge of a CD-ROM drive’s speed. Times of 150
milliseconds or less are adequate.
Removable media
Many different standards and types of removable media exist, including the popular
Syquest, Bernoulli, and Zip systems. In general, the point with any removable media
is to enable you to store a good chunk of data (tens or hundreds of megabytes) on
one removable element. You can then transport that data, share it with others, or
store it in a safe place for backup purposes.
The following are some of the more common types of removables and their
typical uses:
> SyQuest. SyQuest, Inc.’s SyQuest cartridge drives were a popular standard for
Mac creative professionals in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The removable
SyQuest cartridges work a little like hard disk drives, with a drive head and a
platter. Popular capacities include 44MB, 88MB, and 200MB, along with
smaller 135MB, 230MB, and 270MB SyQuest cartridges. Although these
cartridge drives have been supplanted somewhat by new offerings from
SyQuest (like the 1.5GB SyJet drive) and competitor Iomega, they are still very
popular with creative agencies and prepress services.
^ Bernoulli. This competing standard by Iomega was similar to SyQuest drives
in form and function. Sizes ranged from 35MB to 150MB.
4* Magneto Optical. A popular buzzword in the early 1990s, this drive
technology was heralded as a laser-based replacement for many drive
technologies because of its ability to reach higher into impressive storage
capacities. Other drive technologies, however, have largely stolen its
thunder, although it’s made something of a comeback in recent times.
Chapter 2 ♦ Figure Out Your Mac
♦ Zip and Jaz. Taking the industry by storm, Iomega introduced and fiercely
marketed the Zip drive as an inexpensive 100MB storage solution to supplant
the floppy drive. Since then, millions of Zip drives have sold, including many
that are now preconfigured in Apple and clone Mac OS machines. The Jaz
drive. Zip’s bigger brother, is a 1-2GB drive capable of hard drive speeds.
Figure 2-7 shows a Zip drive.
Figure 2-7: The Zip drive, popular for both its convenience and
its blueness (on external versions), is preinstalled in many Power
Mac models. (Photo courtesy Iomega Corp., www.iomega.com)
4 SyJel and EZ Flyer. Not to be outdone, SyQuest has retaliated with a similar
line-up of high-speed removables. The EZ Flyer works at hard drive speeds
(faster than a Zip drive) and stores 230MB of data, whereas the SyJet stores
1.5-3GB of data at a higher speed still. Unfortunately, SyQuest hasn’t been
able to grab the mindshare that Iomega has, making it less likely that a print
shop or service bureau can accept one of these cartridges. They remain,
however, great for personal transporting and backup.
42 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
Input and Output
Your Mac computes, and your Mac stores data. So far, so good. But to think this is
all your Mac does is to overlook the most important part of most computing tasks
— interaction with human beings. That’s where input and output come into play.
Input means getting data into the computer — and this can be done through any
number of different devices: keyboards, mice, trackballs, graphics tablets. Macs
have traditionally been graphically oriented, so input devices have followed suit by
attempting to duplicate other interfaces — like pencil and paper — found in the
artist’s real world (see Figure 2-8). Even scanners and cameras can be used to get
digital data into your Mac.
Figure 2-8: Graphics tablets are a great substitute for a mouse -
especially for freehand artists and other tactile types.
Output means the different ways your computer turns data into something more
tangible by human senses: In most cases, that’s sound or visual display. To generate
output, you need special output devices — such as monitors, printers, and a sound
interface — that can take computer data and turn it into something a little more
interesting and meaningful to people.
Chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 4-3
Hooking up I/O devices
Input/output devices (or I/O devices, for short) are generally external devices that
hang off your computer’s case (some of these things can be built in, too). In
general, these devices are connected to your Mac in one of five ways:
4* Serial Ports. Your Mac has at least one and probably two serial ports, located
on the back of the computer. On most models, one of the ports is labeled with
a picture of a phone, whereas the other one features a small printer icon.
4 SCSI. All Macs also feature an external SCSI port, enabling you to hook up
multiple SCSI devices by daisy chaining them together. SCSI devices can
include hard drives, CD-ROM drives, scanners, cameras, and other devices.
4 ADB Ports. ADB, or Apple Desktop Bus, is a special port used for keyboards,
mice, and graphics tablets, and serves as a power source for some other
peripherals (some modems, for example). ADB can also accept multiple
devices daisy chained together.
4 Peripheral-specific ports. Most Macs also feature a monitor port, a port for
speakers, a line-in (microphone or audio device) port and, in some cases, a
telephone jack or an Ethernet networking port. All these are designed to
accept particular types of peripherals to expand the Mac’s capabilities.
4 Expansion cards. Modern Macs also feature the capability to accept internal
cards, enabling you to add circuit boards, called expansion cards, that add
input/output capabilities to your Mac. Three major types of expansion cards
exist: processor direct slot (PDS) cards, NuBus slot cards, and Peripheral
Component Interconnect (PCI) cards. Which type of card you get depends on
the type of expansion slots your Mac has to offer (see Chapter 4 for more
details).
The very latest Macs -so new that they haven't shipped at the time of writing —
promise to offer two new ways to connect devices to your Mac: Firewire and USB
ports. Firewire is the next generation of SCSI, and it promises fewer headaches and
higher speeds for applications like digital video production. Universal Serial Bus
(USB) is a new, cross-platform take on the old Idea of serial ports, offering higher
speeds and more compatibility. Both are expected, at some point, to replace their
aging counterparts in future Mac models.
Types of 1/0 devices
It’s odd to think of the Macintosh in any shape or form as a relative of the huge
mainframe computers of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. (A few are still around,
believe it or not.) But both types of machine are computers. And both need to
44 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
use input and output devices to interact with humans. Whereas the creators of
supercomputing dynamos probably never worried about allowing you to scan
family pictures to add them to a Web page, they did have to enable basic input and
output devices to connect to the computer, just as your Mac does.
Although several devices might come to mind immediately — keyboards, mice,
monitors — you’ll probably find a number of different 1/0 devices you’ve never
heard much about. Adding different ways to communicate with your Mac (or simply
going with a higher quality of 1/0 devices) can go a long way to making you more
productive and/or more pleased with time spent computing. Let’s look at four basic
categories:
4 Getting data into the computer. Using keyboards, touchpads, trackballs, mice,
joysticks, and graphics tablets, you can get all sorts of data into your
computer.
4 Getting images and sound into the computer Using digital cameras, MIDI
devices, AV capabilities, and scanners, you can add images to your
documents, file them away in databases, or use sound in your presentations.
Power Macs and a few other models can even accept voice commands using
specisd software and an Apple PlainTalk microphone.
4 Receiving visual results from the computer Monitors and printers are popular
upgrades for serious Mac users. The more you sit in front of your computer or
you look at the printed pages it spits out, the higher you’ll probably want the
quality of these devices to be.
4 Receiving audible results from the computer Using the Mac’s built-in sound (on
most models), you can hook up a stereo receiver or powered speakers to hear
sounds that are generated digitally. You can also hook up MIDI devices on
which your Mac can actually play songs. Or, your Mac can speak selections of
text using Apple’s Text-to-Speech technology.
Keyboards
The keyboard is generally considered requisite by nearly everyone but Apple, who
made a play at selling Macs without them in the early 1990s. (This unbundling was
actually done to lower the suggested price and allow users to buy a keyboard they
preferred on their own, but it’s still a bit odd.) Most of us probably use a keyboard
for the majority of our input needs, although a few other options exist.
Keyboards are connected to Macs using the ADB port located on the back of the
Macintosh’s case. Most ADB devices can be daisy chained, enabling you to do
things such as hooking a keyboard to your Mac, and then hooking a mouse to your
keyboard. The ADB is a Mac exclusive; it’s not compatible with the majority of
keyboards in the Intel-compatible PC world, which rely on two other connecting
standards (PC serial ports and the IBM PS/2 connector). Although you can adapt PC
keyboards to work with Macs, it’s often a more expensive solution than even the
most pricey Mac keyboard. With newer Macs, USB ports enable you to share input
devices between Macs and PCs.
Chapter 2 ^ Figure Out Your Mac 45
Although earlier keyboards offered fewer keys, these days the 105-key extended
keyboard is standard for most Mac configurations. Such a keyboard includes a
numeric keypad, inverted-T cursor keys, and a row of function keys from FI to F15.
In addition, Mac keyboards are set apart from other keyboards by including three
special keys — Control, Option, and Command (§§) — on either side of the space
bar. (Figure 2-9 shows a standard 105-key layout.)
Figure 2-9: A typical 105-key extended keyboard, designed for a
Macintosh.
Obviously, keyboards other than the standard U.S. English QWERTY keyboard exist,
supporting non-English characters, high-performance layouts (like Dvorak-style
keyboards), and even some devices that can be operated with one hand or by
individuals with limited mobility. Many of these keyboards are available in ADB
versions compatible with Macs, although some may follow a PC standard, which
would then have to be adapted to ADB. (Doing so is discussed in Chapter 10.)
Mice and pointing devices
The Standard Mac mouse is a single-button, ADB device that can be either
connected directly to a Macintosh’s ADB port or daisy chained by connecting it to
an available input on a Mac-compatible keyboard. Earlier mice (for systems like the
Mac Plus and before) were serial devices that connected directly to a 9-pin port on
the back of the machine.
46 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
A ball in the base of a Mac’s mouse tracks across the tabletop or mousepad as you
drag the mouse. Those movements are translated into digital signals, which the
Mac interprets and responds to by moving the on-screen mouse pointer in relation
to the movement you make with the mouse. Because the mouse tracks relative
movement, you can pick the mouse up and put it back down in another location
without affecting the position of the mouse pointer. (This is not true of all pointing
devices.)
Nearly all Mac systems include a mouse as part of the package; it’s difficult to get
by without one. Alternatives to the mouse, however, abound. For a variety of
reasons, a new mouse or another ADB (or USB) pointing device is certainly an
upgrade to consider:
-f Two-button programmable mice. Mice with two or more buttons are
becoming more popular among Mac owners who have upgraded to Mac OS 8.0
and beyond. The latest versions of the Mac OS support contextual menus that
pop up whenever the user holds down the Control key while clicking. This
Ctrl-click can be programmed into some mice, enabling a second button to be
used to bring up the contextual menu.
> Ergonomic mice. Some users and manufacturers have found that paying close
attention to how a mouse fits in your hand can go a long way to avoid strain
and wrist injuries. Special mice have resulted that offer different sizes and
contours.
4 Trackballs and trackpads. Both of these types of devices enable you to use a
few fingers to move the mouse pointer around on the screen instead of
dragging a mouse around on your desktop. Although these devices still
promote repetitive movements, some users feel less strain than with mice.
Others simply feel more comfortable or accurate using these input choices.
4 Joysticks. Usually used for games, many Mac joysticks can also double as
mouse-like pointing devices, enabling you to use the joystick to manipulate
the mouse pointer on screen.
4 Drawing tablets. Probably the most fun of these optional pointing devices is
the drawing tablet, which enables you to use pen-to-paper motion to move the
mouse pointer around on the screen. Useful for intensely graphical projects,
these tablets also come in inexpensive consumer versions that can just as
easily be used by professionals or home users.
4 Touch screens. Special monitors or add-ons to existing monitors can be used
to upgrade your Mac to include touch-screen capabilities, allowing the mouse
pointer (and/or mouse clicks) to be manipulated by pointing at or touching
the screen.
chapter 2 Figure Out Your Mac 47
Scanners
All the data your Mac works with is digital data, meaning it’s been translated into Is
and Os for interpretation by a computer. When it comes to a digital picture, your
Mac has no real understanding of the overall image; instead, it knows the digits that
represent that image as a grid of pixels composed of light, brightness, and color
levels. This is especially easy to believe with a program like Adobe Photoshop or
Macromedia FreeHand, which enables you to edit those pixels as you work.
But what about a printed 35 mm photograph? Or a charcoal sketch? For a Mac to
work with medium like this, it has to turn it from something solid into something
digitally rendered. To make this conversion happen, Macs require the services of an
input device called a scanner.
Like photocopiers, scanners use special light-sensitive receptors to pass over a
printed image, collecting information about the lights and darks, the color values of
red, blue, and green in the image, and the dimensions of the grid of pixels it’s trying
to create. Although scanners can vary greatly in quality, the price of most models
has been coming down rapidly, allowing nearly everyone to get their hands on a
scanner that will fill their needs. Types of scanners include the following:
^ Handheld scanners. These scanners are increasingly rare. At one point a very
popular alternative to flatbed scanners, handhelds included the scanning
internals in a unit about five inches wide that could be dragged slowly down a
document to scan it into the computer.
^ Flatbed scanners. These scanners have seen amazing price drops over the
past few years, causing the market for handheld scanners to disappear.
Flatbed scanners enable you to lay a document or open book face down on
glass, like a photocopier, and then scan the image into your Mac. Flatbed
scanners tend to offer the best quality and color reproduction.
> Page scanners. A relatively new class of scanners, page scanners are designed
to be small, unobtrusive scanners that are fed a page at a time. Most of the
scanning mechanisms are less sophisticated than a flatbed’s, resulting in
lower overall image quality. Page scanners are inexpensive, though, and offer
a good solution for professionals and home users who want to scan
documents for nongraphic tasks such as copying, faxing, and digital archiving.
Figure 2-10 shows a page scanner.
48 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 2-TO: The PaperPort page scanner is a convenient way to
make lower-quality scans for faxing by modem or making printed copies.
Most flatbed scanners connect to Macs using the external SCSI interface, because
they have a lot of information to transfer. Many page scanners, on the other hand,
use a serial (modem/printer) port for transferring the image back to the Mac; this is
done for the sake of convenience, enabling you to use the scanner with more than
one Mac. Some page scanners, however, do feature SCSI connections for increased
speed. And there are other specialty scanners, too, designed to scan 35mm slides,
transparencies or other special media.
Digital cameras
Growing steadily more popular each year is a new class of digital camera geared to
small business and consumer users. First spearheaded by Apple with the original
QuickTake camera (codeveloped with Kodak), consumer digital cameras have
become a popular hardware niche featuring companies such as Kodak, Olympus,
Nikon, Casio, and Canon.
Digital cameras don’t require film. Instead, they use camera-like lenses and settings
to capture digital information, which is then stored in static RAM or on cards or
expansion modules of some kind (the type of memory used by the camera can vary
widely). The picture can then be transferred to a computer, viewed on a television
screen (with many models), or, occasionally, saved to a disk or printed to a color
inkjet printer.
Chapter 2 -f Figure Out Your Mac
Most of the time, you’ll want to transfer the images to your Mac for editing in
Photoshop or a similar program. They can then be used for desktop publishing,
Web publishing, digital archiving, or other tasks.
Most digital cameras communicate with Macs using a serial port. Some models can
also use a Video In connection (on AV-equipped Macs) to transfer still images
and/or live motion video to your Mac.
Tethered cameras
Also called digital video cameras or videoconferencing cameras, these popular add-
ons for Macs tend to have small camera lens that can be focused on a computer
user while he or she is viewing the Mac’s monitor, as shown in Figure 2-11.
Figure 2-11: The QuickCam is a popular, low-cost tethered camera for Web-
based video conferencing. (Figure courtesy Connectix Corporation,
wvwv.connectix.com)
Such cameras are useful for sending live video images over phone lines or the
Internet or for digitizing video to be sent via removable media. Many of these
cameras are also capable, like digital cameras, of taking still images. The
difference: Tethered cameras have to stay connected to your Mac at all times for
them to work. They’re usually connected via a serial port or a Video In connector
on AV-equipped Macs.
50 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
AV upgrades
Many Mac models in the past few years have come with onboard audio/visual
features, usually in the form of inputs for video using RCA-style (or S-video and
stereo miniplug) adapters and cables. These inputs enable you to hook up a TV,
VCR, camcorder, or other compatible video source for getting video streams into
your Mac. Whereas nearly all Macs have sound input, AV Macs feature stereo sound
inputs that can be used in conjunction with the video inputs to digitize the audio
along with video images.
The most basic AV cards do little on their own, instead relying on Apple’s
QuickTime multimedia software working together with an application program
designed to digitize the video that comes in from your video source. Your Mac then
digitizes the video by applying a special video compressor/decompressor (CODEC)
to compress the amount of storage space required by the movie. The video is then
stored as digital information on a large disk drive.
Some higher-end upgrades, however, feature circuitry designed to speed the Mac’s
ability to turn the video signal into digital information by supporting various
codecs with acceleration hardware. This hardware acceleration enables the movie
to be digitized more quickly, at the same time creating smaller files on the hard
drive. This means the movie can be larger on the screen than a movie digitized by a
Mac equipped with basic AV capabilities.
AV upgrades come in the form of expansion cards (using either the older NuBus
interface or the newer PCI standard, depending on what your Mac supports) that
you install inside your Mac. A few Mac models have the basic capability built in, but
also allow you to add expansion cards that speed the digitizing process.
Mac video upgrades
To display a video image on a computer monitor, most Mac models come with
some sort of video capability included: Either the video circuitry is built into the
logic board or it comes on an installed expansion card. What I’m talking about here
is different from the capability to display images on a TV screen, which requires
different circuitry. (That’s called video out and it’s usually included on AV Mac or
AV upgrade cards.)
Just because this monitor-driving ability is included doesn’t mean it can’t be
upgraded. In fact, there are a number of reasons to consider upgrading your Mac’s
computer video capability:
> More colors. Depending on the size of your screen (and the resolution of the
display, as described next), your Mac’s onboard video may be limited to a
certain amount of colors — often the limitation is either 256 colors or
“thousands” of colors. For true professional results, you may want to be able
to view millions of different colors on the screen at once. In cases like that,
you need to upgrade your video capabilities, usually by adding a special
memory module to your video circuitry.
Chapter 2 > Figure Out Your Mac 5 1
4 ^ Higher resolution. The larger your Mac’s monitor, the more desktop space
you can display at one time. An original compact Mac has a 9-inch (diagonal)
monitor, making it nearly impossible to view (and read) an entire page of text
at once. Large monitors used for desktop publishing can be more like 20
inches diagonally. That allows you to easily view an entire page because the
monitor shows you more of the Mac’s desktop. To get all this desk'top space
on a 20-inch monitor, you may need to upgrade your video’s memory or add
an expansion card. Otherwise, you may be stuck at a lower resolution,
meaning the image is larger, but you can see less of it at one time.
4^ Use two monitors. If you’ve never seen this in action, you’re missing
something. Nearly any Macintosh can actually use two or more monitors at
once, employing all of the space as workspace on the screen. (For instance,
you could put your e-mail program on the screen to your right, but design
Web pages on the screen to the left.) To do this, all you need is more than one
computer video output. Some Macs already have more than one (especially
the AV Mac and many PowerBook models), but others require an expansion
card update.
Better response times. Finally, you can upgrade (or add) a video card in your
Mac to take advantage of accelerator technologies built into new cards. Some
accelerate 2D manipulations (such as in drawing programs), whereas others
accelerate 3D applications (such as computer-aided design [CAD] modeling or
gaming). Whichever you opt for requires an additional expansion card,
although some accelerators work together with your existing video card.
Video circuitry is built into many Macs, but that circuitry may be able to accept
expansion memory modules. Video circuitry can also be added using a NuBus or
PCI expansion card, depending on the card technology supported by your Mac.
Monitors
You can use a computer without a monitor. Trust me. But there isn’t much point,
unless it’s a computer sitting somewhere in a closet acting as a file server or Web
server. Otherwise, for most people, most of the time, Macs need monitors.
Monitors are another very popular upgrade, because a lot of computer users tend
to find over time that the monitor they bought originally isn’t as crisp, large, or
capable as they’d like it to be. Before people become serious about their Macs, they
tend to think a nice monitor is a luxury they don’t need. After users become more
serious, they’re more likely to decide that a good monitor is worth having. (After
all, you spend hours and hours looking at it!)
Over the years, monitors have been made in many shapes, sizes, and forms.
Although some of that variation no longer exists, you still need to consider a
number of factors when you buy a new or used monitor for your Mac, as follows.
52 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 Multiscan or fixed? Depending on the age of your Mac, its video circuitry
probably supports both multiscan monitors or fixed-resolution monitors. The
difference is multiscan monitors can synchronize to different resolutions,
making it possible for the monitor to change the size of the Mac desktop
pictured on screen. This can be used to make more working space available or
to make the images on the screen bigger for easier reading. Older Macs may
require a special adapter to work with certain multiscan monitors.
4 Color or grayscale? Although very few monitors these days aren’t color, some
very interesting used monitors display only shades of gray instead of colors.
It may not sound like it, but they’re not impossible to work with, especially for
certain applications (reading e-mail, typing letters, or watching over a
network of other Macs, for example).
4 What size? Monitors come in various display sizes, measured diagonally. In
recent years, monitor vendors have been required to detail the specific
dimensions of the viewable area of their monitor (for example, 13.7 inches),
but monitors are still known by more general, accepted sizes (for example, 15
inches). Traditionally, Mac monitors have fallen into one of these sizes: 12, 14,
16, 19, or 21 inches. More recently, Macs have been designed or adapted to
work with the popular and widely available VGA and SuperVGA monitors used
by Intel-compatible PCs. So now sizes such as 15, 17, and 20 inches are
common, too.
4 What dot pitch? l\\e distance between the red, green, and blue dots on a color
monitor can affect the overall appearance and quality of that monitor. Most
modern monitors have a dot pitch of .28 millimeters or lower, which is
perfectly adequate. Larger monitors (16 inches and above) can get by with a
.31 millimeter dot pitch. Monitors above this dot pitch level can be harder to
look at for an extended period of time.
4 CRT or Trinitron? Sony’s Trinitron technology uses stripes instead of pixels on
the screen (along with some other technological differences) that creates an
image pleasing to many computer users’ eyes. Although high-quality CRTs are
certainly available, you might want to compare them to a flat Trinitron display
before making your final decision.
Monitors are always connected to Macs via computer video ports (assuming the
monitor isn’t built into the Mac itselQ. These ports are either built into the logic
board or are part of an expansion card. Only one monitor per port is allowed, but
additional monitors can be hooked up to other available ports connected to
different video circuitry.
Printers
Once you get something interesting on the screen, you may find reason to print it
out and take it with you. Printers have been at the heart of Macintosh computing
since the very beginning, when the Mac and Adobe PageMaker ushered in the
desktop publishing revolution. Apple introduced the original LaserWriter around
that time, making professional output from a computer a reality.
Chapter 2 Figure Out Your Mac 5 3
Since then, printing technology has gone in all sorts of directions. Printers exist for
many different needs and desires. You should consider a few different technologies
in printing:
> Dot-matrix printers. The original Apple ImageWriter was a dot-matrix printer,
meaning It used pins to create small dots on a ribbon that was pressed against
paper, somewhat in the same method employed by modern typewriters.
These printers are fairly cheap to keep running, but very, very uncommon.
They tend to be slow, loud, and the quality of their output is low. They are
useful for multipart (carbon copy) forms, however, because the pins actually
strike the page.
> Inkjet printers. Available in both black-and-white and color varieties, inkjets
represent a low initial investment (rarely more than a few hundred dollars)
that can result in great image and text quality Inkjets are also the only
affordable way to print color documents. Inkjets can be reasonably speedy,
but they don’t compete with laser printers. They’re also somewhat more
expensive to equip with such consumables as paper and ink.
-f Laser printers. These also come in a variety of shapes and sizes, ranging from
hundreds to many thousands of dollars. Although color lasers aren’t yet
common, Apple does make a few for more professional endeavors. On the
lower end, lasers are a fast, inexpensive way to print black-and-white pages
quickly. Consumables (like laser toner) can be expensive one-time purchases,
but they last much longer than inkjet inks.
Macs can actually use two different types of printers (directly), and those printers
can be connected to the Mac in two different ways. QuidiDraw printers use the
Mac’s own screen and page description technology to print a page, meaning the
printers can be cheaper and easier to service. It also means the printer can only be
connected to a Mac and can’t be easily shared with a network of Intel-compatible
PCs. Additionally, it uses TrueType font technology, which is a decent font
technology, but not always the best choice for graphics professionals.
Postscript printers, on the other hand, use the standard Adobe Postscript page
description language to print the page. This usually means more professional
quality. It also means that other computers, such as those based on Windows and
UNIX, can print to the printer, too.
Some Mac printers (especially QuickDraw printers) can be connected directly to
the printer port on the back of the Mac. Others can be networked using LocalTalk
or Ethernet cabling. Ethernet is especially useful for powerful network printers that
need to be shared with groups of Macs and/or Mac and Intel-compatible users.
Speakers
Most Macs can accept speakers connected to the Sound Out port on the back panel
of the Mac. The speakers can’t be garden variety, though. They need to be
somewhat special.
54 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
The connector on the back of a Macintosh is actually a line-out connector, meaning
it needs to be sent to an cimplifier before it can be played over speakers. Powered
computer speakers can be used in this case; the speakers have to plug into a wall
power outlet or run on batteries. Your other option: Hook your Mac up to your
home stereo system’s amplifier.
Computer speakers should also be properly shielded so that the magnets inside the
speakers don’t affect any of the surrounding computer equipment. Magnets can
distort monitor images and erase data from floppy disks and removable media.
MIDI sound
The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) specification enables you to hook
electronic instruments, such as keyboard synthesizers, up to your Mac using a
special converter box. The box itself is usually connected to a serial
(modem/printer) port, and then the device is hooked into the converter box.
This allows you to play notes on the instrument that are then recognized by
specialized MIDI software. The music isn’t just recorded by your Mac, however.
MIDI software can actually differentiate the notes and, for instance, display them as
annotation on a music staff. You can have your computer write, transpose,
harmonize, and do many different things with music, ultimately enabling you to
compose directly on the screen. The resulting music can then be played through
your Mac’s speakers or sent back out to the instrument and played automatically.
Communication Between Computers
One other form of input/output hasn’t really been mentioned so far — input and
output to-and-from other computers. Although your Mac will probably spend a lot
of time interacting with you, you may also want it to interact with other computers
(especially when it’s younger). Not only will it grow up to be well adjusted, but it
will enable you to access the Internet, work with files from other platforms (such as
DOS and Windows), and even run programs written for other computers.
Communicating with other computers
At some point you’ll want to move your Mac from its isolated little island out into
the world of network communications. Or maybe it’s already networked, and you
want it to go faster. In either case, you can upgrade to get your Mac talking directly
to other Macs, Intel-compatible PCs, or all sorts of computers out on the Internet.
Chapter 2 Figure Out Your Mac 5 5
Modems
A modem (modulaior/demodulator) is the most basic form of networking,
enabling you to call other computers over regular phone lines and share data.
Modems work by turning digital information into an analog (or audible) signal that
can be transmitted over phone lines. When the data gets to another modem, it’s
translated back into a digital signal that can be interpreted by its computer.
Modems come in different speeds, measured by the number of kilobits they can
transmit per second (Kbps). Although modems were once made to communicate at
rates as low as 150 bps, the current range for acceptable performance is 14.4 Kbps
to 56 Kbps. Technological limitations may keep modems at 56 Kbps for the
foreseeable future, although these sorts of hurdles are usually overcome eventually.
Modems connect to the modem port on the back of your Mac and then directly to a
phone line.
Digital modems
Although there’s really no such thing as a digital modem (a modem by definition
means a digital-to-analog conversion), it’s popular to call some long-distance
networking devices “modems” because they’re for use in homes or small
businesses over existing lines of communication — phone lines, satellites, or
cable TV lines. These technologies include the following:
4* ISDN. Integrated Services Digital Network is a refit of the current telephone
service designed to offer more services than a typical phone line as well as
high-speed computer communications. Typical ISDN modems can transfer
data at about 128 Kbps.
*4 xDSL. An emerging technology that allows for very fast digital transmissions
over existing telephone lines. Speeds vary but run in the hundreds of Kbps.
*4 Cable. Offered by your cable TV provider, these modem-like connections offer
high-speed Internet access over the existing cable line. Speed varies
depending on the number of subscribers in a given area, but averages at least
a few hundred Kbps.
4 Satellite. A satellite dish (usually the smaller 18-inch version) is used to
receive Internet-related transmissions. Usually high-speed in one direction
(toward your Mac) but requires a traditional slower modem connection to
send data back to the Internet.
For the most part, these digital modems are still emerging, and standards and/or
capabilities may change dramatically. Currently, those that are available use either
an expansion card slot, an Ethernet connection, or the modem port to connect to
your Mac.
56 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
Local Area Networks
When you connect a number of Macs (or Macs and Intel-compatible PCs) in an
office, you’re creating a local area network, or LAN. You can do this to share files,
send e-mail, collaborate on documents, or share other resources, such as printers
or Internet access. To create a LAN, though, you’ll need to string some cable
between all your machines.
Small, slower networks can use LocalTalk cabling, which directly connects Macs
using special LocalTalk (or PhoneNet) adapters and cabling that stretches between
them. Usually Macs are connected together in a daisy chain (or bus topology) so
that one Mac accepts a connection from another Mac before it extends a
connection to the next Mac in line. The Macs at either end have terminators that
force the data to bounce back down the cabling, if necessary. LocalTalk can be a bit
slow, sending data at about 230 Kbps.
Larger networks can use Ethernet cabling for a much higher speed connection
(ideally, 10 Mbps, or megabits per second). In this case, it may be necessary to
install a network hub, which is used to help data find its way to the appropriate
Mac. Fast Ethernet cabling and connectors bump that speed up to 100 Mbps, but
require Fast Ethernet equipment for all connected Macs.
Special software is also necessary. An all-Mac network can use AppleTalk for
sharing files and printers, whereas add-on software may be necessary to
incorporate Intel-compatible PCs into your LAN.
LocalTalk runs directly off the printer ports of nearly every Mac made, but Ethernet
can sometimes require an expansion card. Ethernet capabilities are built into many
business Macs (Centris, Quadra, most Power Macintoshes), although you may still
need to buy a special adapter.
Working with DOS and Windows
The other part of being a well-rounded communicator is learning to read, write, and
think in other languages. The Mac equivalent of a foreign tongue includes files and
disks formatted for use in the MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows world. Fortunately,
most modern Macs are fully equipped to handle just about anything a Windows
user can throw at them. Some Macs go even further, offering enhancements that
can enable you to actually run Windows and DOS software on your Mac.
Files and floppies
At its most basic, nearly every Mac (beyond the Mac Plus and original Mac II)
features a special floppy drive, called the Superdrive, that is capable of reading
floppy disks in formats other than that specific to Macintosh. Using PC Exchange, a
Macintosh control panel that ships with System 7.5 and above, your Mac can
actually accept and read a PC-formatted floppy disk with no real intervention on
your part. Just pop the floppy in the drive. The PC-formatted disk appears on your
desktop, as shown in Figure 2-12.
Chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 57
Figure 2-12: The PC floppy appears on the desktop with a special Icon.
How do you get PC files into your Mac applications? For your Mac to read the PC-
based files, it needs a compatible program. For instance, Microsoft Word 98 for
Macintosh can easily read just about any sort of Microsoft Word for Windows file
(Word 97, Word 95, Word 6.0) that youTI come across. Plus, updates for new
versions of Word for Windows can usually be downloaded from Microsoft’s site in a
timely fashion. Similarly, a program like ClarisWorks has built into it the ability to
read and write data files in PC-oriented formats like Microsoft’s RTF and
WordPerfect for DOS.
Check www.microsoft.com/macoffice for updates and other information on
Word and other Microsoft Office applications.
If you have Mac OS 7.6 or above, you may also have received MacLinkPIus, a
bundled set of translators that can be used with most Mac applications to load files
created by different Mac or PC applications. In this case, you have an entire arsenal
of file translators at your disposal, enabling you to load a ton of different file
formats into the Macintosh application of your choice. Figure 2-13 shows my
ClarisWorks File Open dialog box, enhanced by MacLinkPIus.
58 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 2-13: With the addition of MacLinkPlus, your Mac applications can load and
work with many, many PC file formats.
In most cases, you'll want to use a program that's actually similar in function to the
application that originally created the data file you're trying to import. If someone
sent you a PC-based Lotus 1,2,3 (spreadsheet) document, you should probably try to
open it using Microsoft Excel or ClarisWorks' spreadsheet tools.
Windows/PC emulation software
As advanced PowerPC processors have tons of power to burn, some enterprising
software companies have come up with a way to allow Windows and DOS programs
to actually run on top of the Mac OS. Double-click a file, and you’ve suddenly got
Windows 95 (or the opei citing system of your choice) chugging along in a window.
Not only are these emulators used for playing games (which is certainly a popular
reason to own one of these programs), but these Windows solutions are great for
professional Mac owners who need access to an occasional Windows application
or an in-house DOS program. They’re also a good idea for telecommuters who want
to dial into their Windows network using a home-based Macintosh.
chapter 2 4- Figure Out Your Mac 59
SoftWindows 95, from Insignia Corporation, is a popular example of this software,
enabling users to run nearly any Windows 95 application on top of their Mac OS
desktops. It can require a bit of RAM to operate (at least 20MB of free RAM is
recommended for good performance), but it’s a good way to run Windows if you
have a pressing need. (Figure 2-14 shows SoftWindows in action.)
Figure 2-14: SoftWindows enables you to resize the Windows desktop so it fits in a
window along with your other Mac applications.
Although SoftWindows emulates Windows itself, other programs have also been
written to emulate an actual Intel-compatible PC on your Mac. It doesn’t look much
different — the PC environment still runs in a window on your Mac’s desktop — but
the result is an emulator that’s more flexible in its ability to run DOS, Windows,
OS/2, Linux, OpenStep, and almost any other operating system designed to work
on a typical PC. Insignia makes one of these applications, called RealPC. Connectix,
of RAMDoubler and SpeedDoubler fame, offers a popular alternative to RealPC
called Virtual PC.
60 Part I ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
DOS-compatible cards
The final option for DOS compatibility is a specially designed expansion card called
a DOS-compatible card. Made by companies like Apple, Reply, and Orange Micro,
these cards are NuBus or PCI expansion cards that feature an actual Intel-
compatible processor on the card. Using a keystroke sequence (usually §€-Return),
the control of your monitor, keyboard, and mouse is transferred to the DOS-
compatible card, enabling you to work in Windows, DOS, or (sometimes) another
PC-based operating system. You can even add a second monitor to observe the DOS
card’s progress while you work on the Mac, and then use the keystroke sequence to
return to the DOS side.
Summary
^ Three major subsystems — processing, input/output, and storage — work
together to make your Mac compute. Data is gathered by the input devices,
placed in memory, processed by the central processing unit (CPU), and sent
back out to the user via output devices. It can then be saved for a later date
using storage devices.
^ The “brains” of your Mac include the CPU, main system memory (RAM), and
any cache memory your Mac may hcive. This is the “short-term” memory,
where data and instructions are stored until your Mac has the opportunity to
compute based on that data. RAM is probably the most necessary and useful
upgrade a Mac owner can make, although upgrading the CPU can certainly
speed up your computing experience.
4* All Macs include some sort of storage device — a floppy drive, hard drive,
CD-ROM drive, or all three — but the included storage options sometimes
aren’t enough for the intrepid Mac user. The technology now exists to store
lOOMB or even 2GB of data on a single, removable cartridge that’s easy to
carry with you or store for safe-keeping. Plus, they’re usually reasonably
inexpensive.
4 There are plenty of different devices to help you get data into and out of your
Mac, including keyboards, mice, scanners, monitors, and printers. More
exciting options include drawing tablets, digital cameras, and audio/visual
technology that can even be used to digitize and edit movies or recorded
audio.
4 What else do you need to do? A Mac can be hooked up to other computers
using modems and networking cables, and it can access the Internet. Or, you
can read PC-formatted floppies if you need to share files with friends and
colleagues. In fact, many Power Macs (and a few earlier models) can even run
Windows and DOS programs in a window, right along side your Mac
applications. All you need is the right upgrade.
4 ^ 4 -
4
Find Your
Bottlenecks
CHAP T E R
A s any computer ages, it begins to exhibit signs of
slowing down. Some of these signs can be attributed
to maintenance issues: It’s important to upgrade your
operating system, delete unused files, and run disk-utility
programs to maintain order inside your Mac. Over time,
however, it’s inevitable that computers will begin to slow
down without more extreme measures, usually involving a
hardware upgrade.
> 4 ^ ^
In This Chapter
What causes a Mac
to slow down?
Memory and
processor issues
How storage affects
performance
When it’s time to upgrade, the key to doing it successfully is
finding where exactly the traffic jams are occurring in your
system. What subsystems are slowing down? Processing?
Storage? Are a number of different factors coming together to
slow down your Mac’s operation?
You’ve got to know where the slowdowns — the bottlenecks —
are occurring before you can make an informed decision to
upgrade.
How fo pinpoint
the slowdowns in
your Mac
Quality-of-work
bottlenecks
4 - 4 ^ > -4
why Is My Mac Slowing Down?
Once you understand the various components in your Mac
and the possible upgrades you can perform (as discussed in
Chapter 2), you might still be left puzzling over the common
question, “Why is my Mac getting slower?” After all, when
you bought your Mac, chances are you were perfectly happy
with its speed. At that time it ran the Mac OS and all your
applications, the windows snapped around the screen, and it
didn’t even take terribly long to print. But since that time
(especially if it’s been quite a while), things seem to be taking
longer.
62 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
There are two main reasons a computer begins to slow down over time:
The Mac*s storage subsystem is poorly maintained or overloaded. Having a well-
maintained hard drive, with at least 5 to 15 percent free space, is important to
the operation of any computer. As a hard disk becomes filled, it has a
tendency to become fragmented, forcing the disk’s read/write heads to race
around more and more to find the necessary data. All this hard drive
accessing (called thrashing by nerdy types) can severely affect the Mac’s
performance. Figure 3-1 shows an example of fragmentation.
Figure 3-1: Norton Utilities' Disk Doctor can tell you the level of
fragmentation on your drive.
What does fragmentation mean?
When your Mac writes data — either application files or documents— to its hard disk, it does
its best to write the data sequentially. When you first buy (or reformat) a hard drive, this
sequential writing is relatively easy to do. The drive simply finds some free space and
begins writing; more than likely, enough space occurs in one area so that the data file can
be put down in its entirety.
But once a hard disk has seen quite a bit of use, those free spaces become more scarce.
As a result, the Mac is forced to write data wherever it can manage to find some empty
space -even if it can't write the whole file sequentially. Instead, it will keep track of the
various places, all over the hard drive, where it was able to squeeze in some data. These
haphazardly written data files are then considered fragmented, because small fragments
are littered all over the drive.
chapter 3 4 Find Your Bottlenecks 63
This can happen even when the hard drive isn't full, especially after months of use. As you
add and delete files, the linear, sequential areas on the drive get filled and wiped and filled
again, to the point that even a drive that's only half full is forcing files to be saved all over
the place. To further illustrate, imagine working with a stenographer's pad and pencil. If you
fill the pad and then use the pencil's eraser to do away with every third paragraph, the pad
is only two-thirds full. But filling it again would require writing only in the available space,
resulting in a lot of page turning, which would slow your note-taking.
To speed up a fragmented drive, it should be defragmented using Norton Utilities or a sim-
ilar program. These programs rearrange the data files sequentially so that they're no longer
as fragmented. As an added bonus, the free space is organized sequentially, too, so that
new data files are also written in the most efficient manner. If your drive is heavily frag-
mented, you might get a nice little speed boost from running such a utility program.
4 - You've added new programs, system software enhancements, or new tasks that
require more advanced technology. This is the real reason most Macs seem
to slow down. Whereas new Mac OS versions can sometimes actually speed
things up a bit (especially for Power Macintoshes), often Apple adds new
features and technologies that can slow down older computers. Other
applications can do the same thing by adding new features that become
more and more power hungry. Microsoft Word 5.1, for instance, ran on most
Mac II series computers with plenty of gusto. Mac Word 6.0, however, required
even faster Quadra and Centris machines. Mac Word 98, taking things even
further, doesn’t run particularly speedily on anything below a second-
generation (PowerPC 603- or 604-based) Power Mac.
Even if you’ve been diligent in your fight against hard-disk fragmentation, the fault
for your Mac’s slowdown can be laid squarely on your shoulders. If you didn’t want
all those new-fangled software programs, you wouldn’t be in the performance
crunch you are now! A Mac Plus running Mac System 6.0.1, PageMaker 1.0, and
MacPaint would still be a perfectly serviceable machine. Not a very exciting one,
but it wouldn’t be incredibly slow. Of course, if you’ve already used the later
versions, you’re probably hooked on the features. To speed up all that new
software, you’ll need to find your hardware bottlenecks.
Understanding bottlenecks
A bottleneck is a point of congestion that retards or halts free movement, such as
a traffic jam. In fact, the use of the term “bottleneck” in computing may be directly
related to the high frequency of automobile traffic jams in the computing mecca
of California. (California’s famous traffic jams actually seem to attract millions of
people to the state, apparently so they can be seen talking on a cellular telephone.)
64 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
In much the same way that too many distracted cell-phone users can cause a
bottleneck on California’s highways, a relatively minor part of your Mac’s
subsystems can easily create an impasse that retards or halts the free movement of
data between your Mac’s processor, storage devices, and input/output devices.
This is especially true if, by using newer programs, Mac OS versions, or more
unwieldy data files, you’re causing the pathways inside your Mac to deal with more
data than they have in the past.
Of course, another way to illustrate the problem with bottlenecks is to remind you
that the term is meant to conjure the image of the neck of a bottle. The neck is usu-
ally thinner than the rest of the bottle, retarding the flow of liquid out of the bottle
(especially if you turn the bottle completely upside-down). When you do away with
the bottleneck in your computing subsystems, you can likely speed the flow of data in
your Mac.
That’s a computing bottleneck. Determining which bottlenecks are likely occurring
in your Mac is part of the process you need to go through to get the most bang for
your upgrading buck.
For example, a very common bottleneck for many Mac owners is not having enough
RAM; without enough RAM, even a normally speedy Power Macintosh can slow way
down. RAM is necessary for running more than one program, dealing with large
documents (like digital images), and even setting a disk cache or RAM disk that can
speed the flow of data through your Mac (see Figure 3-2).
Figure 3-2: Using the Memory control
panel, you can change a number of RAM-
related settings. The more RAM you have, the
more effectively these settings can speed up
your Mac.
Knowing this about RAM, you might be inclined to run out and buy RAM right now.
(Always a good idea, by the way, unless your Mac is already at its maximum or you
don’t have an available RAM upgrade slot.) But if you hadn’t considered this
bottleneck, you might have incorrectly assumed your processor needs upgrading —
it may not, depending on the sorts of tasks you perform. A new motherboard or
CPU upgrade is considerably more expensive than 16 or 32 more megabytes of
RAM. And you’d find, even if you bought and installed the processor upgrade, you
might still need extra RAM to get it working at full speed.
Chapter 3 ♦ Find Your Bottlenecks 05
Finding the bottleneck
Finding the bottleneck usually amounts to determining what has changed in your
system and what subsystem has been affected by the change. In Chapter 1, 1
mention the 75/25 rule. If your system Is now too slow for comfort, something
about your needs has changed. Perhaps you’re creating many more flyers, but you
haven’t updated your printer. Or maybe you’re working with much more advanced
graphics, but you don’t have a specialized video accelerator. In any case, you need
to get back to the point where at least 75 percent of your computing tasks are
handled with grace and speed by your Mac.
Most likely, you’ve upgrading a piece of software or two (or you’ve upgraded the
Mac OS), and that software now requires more advanced Mac hardware to run at an
acceptable speed. Table 3-1 shows some examples of popular Mac software and
how, from one version to the next, software can require you to upgrade your Mac’s
hardware to keep up. The question is, what exactly is slowing the software down?
That’s what you’ll need to determine before upgrading.
Table 3-1
Up the Ante: Software Requirements from Version to Version
Software Title
Version
Requirements
Version
Requirements
ClarisWorks
4.0
68020, 4MB RAM
5,0
68020, SMB RAM,
55MB HD
MS Office
4.2.1
68030, 8MB RAM,
62MB HD
98
PowerPC, 16MB
RAM, 120MB HD
Quicken
7.0
68030, 6MB RAM,
12MB HD
98
68030, 16MB RAM,
45MB HD
HyperCard
2.3.5
68000, 2MB RAM
2.4
68020, 16MB RAM
For starters, take a look at some common bottlenecks:
4- RAM. It’s a fact of computing: New programs simply require more RAM. Mac
OS 8 and later, for instance, require that at least 16MB of RAM be present in
your Mac, just for starters — and that certainly doesn’t guarantee optimum
performance. RAM is the most common bottleneck in most Mac systems, and
it’s among the easiest upgrades.
Cache. Cache RAM, if your Mac is capable of accepting it, can speed up your
computing considerably. In many cases, a Mac’s processor isn’t being fully
tasked, even if your system is slowing down. The problem may be that the
processor is waiting for data to arrive. When that’s the case, cache RAM can
certainly help.
66 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 Processor. If your processor is aging, it may begin to choke on all the new
instructions, features, and lines of programming code in newer applications.
The more 3D, image manipulation and number crunching your applications
do, the more your CPU can become a bottleneck.
4 Network. If you’re using LocalTalk for your network, you’re not
communicating at a tenth of the speed you could be using Ethernet. You
should also have an efficient network setup — with file and print servers, if
necessary — to speed things along, especially in a larger workgroup.
4 Modem. If you use a dial-up connection for access to networks or the Internet,
a slow modem can mean the difference between frustration and productivity.
Even the latest Power Macs can be brought to their knees by slow modem
connections.
4 Video card. Accelerated video cards can jazz up the performance of Macs for
artists, designers, multimedia professionals, and, of course, gamers. By off-
loading some of the processing requirements relative to graphics, accelerated
video cards enable the system’s CPU to devote time to other tasks.
4 Hard drive. If you’re running out of space on your hard drive, you may be
affecting your Mac’s ability to use Virtual Memory (megabytes of storage
space on your hard drive reserved for use by the Mac OS), which could affect
performance when you’re working with many different applications open at
once. Older hard drives can also be relatively slow, making audio/visual and
QuickTime-related tasks crawl along.
4 Printer. If your Mac hums along just fine, but you’re waiting interminable
amounts of time for your final work to appear in print, you may need to
upgrade your printer (by installing more printer RAM, for instance). You
might also need to buy a completely new printer with a faster page-per-minute
rating.
4 Port choice. Serial ports (printer/modem ports) are much slower than
some other upgrade options you may have, such as an internal card or a
SCSI connection. Some devices, such as certain page scanners (those little
scanners that can sit in front of your monitor and be fed a page at a time,
like a fax machine) connect via slow serial cable connections. The faster
ones use a SCSI cable to connect.
Obviously, other bottlenecks may exist — for instance, you may find a specialized
digital video card helps you record and edit video at a faster pace. These
bottlenecks may be important to you or not, depending on the specific work you’re
doing. (Eventually, I discuss them all in this book.) But the main bottlenecks just
discussed are those that most Mac users will encounter when it’s time to upgrade.
Chapter 3 Find Your Bottlenecks 07
Speed versus quality
The other important question to ask when it comes to upgrading your Mac is
whether the problems you’re having are more related to speed or quality. Although
most bottlenecks are about speed, you can also have quality bottlenecks if the
quality of your computing experience or the output your computer generates is
affecting your productivity or livelihood. Some quality issues are related to your
actual time sitting in front of the computer: Maybe you’re squinting at a low-quality
monitor or you’re trying to hear your computer through inadequate speakers. In
these cases, productivity might be affected because you and the computer don’t
get along. Other quality issues have to do with the usefulness and professionalism
of the output generated by your computer.
Upgrading to improve the quality of your work — buying an exceptioncil printer, for
instance — might enable you to get better clients, do a better job of teaching, or
manage your team more effectively. A quality-related upgrade might also keep you
from running out to your local print shop or calling a consultant every time you
need a particular task accomplished. Whatever the reason, you should not only
consider the speed bottlenecks that physically affect your Macintosh system or
network, but also take into account the quality bottlenecks that might be slowing
your day-to-day productivity.
Improve Your Mac's Speed
If you’ve identified speed as your major interest in upgrading, your next step is to
determine the exact bottlenecks slowing your system down. To do this, you need
to spend time observing your Mac as you work — deciding specifically when it
performs well and when it doesn’t. It may surprise you where the bottlenecks
really lie.
Diagnosis: Slow computer
To decide where the slowdowns in your Mac are occurring, you need to take careful
note of the symptoms it’s exhibiting. Understanding these symptoms can help you
find the right upgrade path to address your Mac’s particular bottlenecks. Here are
some of the slowdown symptoms you may encounter:
> My Mac is slow when I have a lot of programs running at once. Although a
processor or logic board can help this situation, the most important upgrade
is RAM. Memory is necessary for you to run more than one program at
once — the more RAM you have, the more programs you can run (see
Figure 3-3).
68 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 3-3: The About This Computer dialog box
(found in the Apple menu when the Finder is active)
shows you how much RAM you have available and
how much is being used by the programs you have
running.
4 My Mac is slow when I'm dealing with a 2D graphic document. These sorts of
files — found in Photoshop or a similar program — can be serious memory
hogs. If you don’t have much RAM, the graphics program is forced to write a
lot of data to the hard drive, slowing everything down. Get more RAM first and
a processor second. You might also consider a floating-point unit (FPU)
upgrade if you have a 68030 or older machine.
4 My Mac is slow when I work with 3D graphics, multimedia programs, and games.
This can take RAM and a speedy processor, but you might also look into a
video card upgrade. Newer video cards offer better 3D performance for
graphics and games. Cards specifically designed for multimedia professionals
can speed up 3D rendering and video editing, too.
4 My Mac is slow when I load and save documents. Your RAM could be low, your
processor could be aging, but the real problem may be that your hard drive is
too slow — especially if you’re dealing with very large files. A new SCSI hard
drive using Fast/Wide technology or higher-speed RPMs might help you save
those large documents more quickly. (You may also need a SCSI expansion
card to take full advantage of a high-speed drive.) A cache RAM upgrade may
also help you here, especially with newer Macs.
4 My Mac is slow when / try to work with almost any document. If typing is slow
when working with a relatively short word processing document, or it takes a
while for the cursor to move to the next cell in your spreadsheet program,
you’re using software that is taxing your Mac’s ability to process information.
(Also, not enough RAM may be available.) When most or all your applications
are unbearably slow, that’s a good indicator a processor or logic board
upgrade is necessary.
Chapter 3 -f Find Your Bottlenecks 09
> My Mac is slow when using a Web browser orAOL This can be a RAM and
processor issue, but it’s most likely a slow connection to the Internet or
online service. For home users, that means a faster modem (or a different
modem technology, like cable or xDSL) is needed. For corporate users, it may
mean you should look into an Ethernet connection to the Internet. (Realize
that this isn’t always the case. Sometimes your Internet connection will be
slow because of bottlenecks on the Internet itself. If you experience chronic
slowness instead of occasional slowdowns, you’re a better candidate for an
upgrade.)
4 * My Mac is slow when I copy files over the network. If you’re still using LocalTalk
connections, you may have outgrown them. Consider using Ethernet cards
and cabling. Also, troubleshoot your network to make sure you’re using the
latest AppleTalk and Internet access software.
> My Mac is slow when it prints. If you’re using an inkjet or personal laser printer,
you might need more RAM or a processor upgrade for your Mac. If you’re
using a PostScript laser printer, you might get away with a RAM upgrade or
processor upgrade for the printer itself. You should also consider a faster
connection for network-style printers — Ethernet is much quicker for printing
than LocalTalk.
> My PowerMac is slow. Although aging Power Macs can use a speed boost from
more RAM or a new processor, you can also breathe new life into any Power
Mac by upgrading its cache RAM. Power Macs make very efficient use of
cache RAM to speed operations considerably. Power Macs also tend to speed
up slightly with each new Mac OS release and perform much more quickly
with native applications, that is, Mac OS programs that are accelerated for the
PowerPC processor.
Speed options
Once you’ve determined the bottleneck(s), you decide what action to take to
eliminate them. Take into account a couple of different things while you decide
what bottlenecks need to be attacked and in what order:
4 - Should I get a new logic board? If you identify a number of different bottlenecks
that are all choking your system — the speed of your expansion cards, your
processor, your RAM, and your cache, for instance — you may need to
consider a complete upgrade of the logic board. Moving to a faster logic
board can bring along speed benefits of all sorts, including the chance to
address many of these bottlenecks at once. Of course, updating some Mac
logic boards can be both expensive and difficult. Make sure you’re
comfortable performing such an upgrade and that a logic board upgrade
Is available for your Mac model. If one isn’t, you may need to consider a
new Mac.
70 Part I 'f Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 What are my priority bottlenecks? If you need to be productive immediately,
you may find that adding RAM, plugging in a cache RAM module, or adding a
SCSI peripheral will result in an immediate speed boost that can help you get
through a crunch; you can then spend time upgrading more complex
components later.
4 * Can it be fixed with a simple upgrade card? Say you want faster 2D or 3D
gaming capability. Video speed problems can usually be fixed quickly with an
upgrade card. PowerPC upgrade cards exist for some Quadra, Mac II, and
Performa models, too. You’ll need to make sure your Mac can handle another
upgrade card (do you have a free slot?) and that you get the right type of card
— PDS, NuBus, or PCI. (See Chapter 4 for information on expansion cards.)
4 “ Am / willing to perform the upgrade? If your Mac is still under warranty (and
the upgrade would void that warranty), you may need to factor in the cost of
consulting a qualified Apple technician. Or, if you’re simply not sure you want
to perform the upgrade yourself, remember that getting help can add to the
overall cost of upgrading.
4 Should I just get a new Mac? If you suddenly realize you’ll be spending quite a
bit of money for the upgrade, don’t forget to consider the possibility of
buying a new or used Mac. New Macs tend to have a nice amount of RAM, a
fast processor, and a new logic board, which, when they’re all put together,
can add up to much better speeds than you get when you upgrade an older
system.
Improve Your Mac's Quality
The flip-side of upgrading involves improving the quality of work you’re able to do
with your Mac. You won’t necessarily speed up with these sorts of upgrades, but
you may find that you’re more productive. In most cases, these upgrades are also
easier to perform, because they tend to involve either expansion cards or external
peripherals. Quality — especially of the output you generate from working — is an
important part of any business or home Mac. The better your final product, the
happier you’ll be with your Mac’s abilities.
Diagnosis: Poor quality
What follows are some common complaints about a Mac’s ability to generate
quality output or otherwise make the computing experience enjoyable. If any of
these apply, you can begin to see what you’ll need to do to improve life with your
Mac, and decide which upgrades, if any, are worthwhile.
4 My monitor is difficult to look at. Some older monitors can be too small, too
fuzzy, or too dim to enjoy working with for long periods of time. The solution,
in most cases, is to buy a new monitor. You can also do a few other things to
revive a monitor, detailed in Chapter 25. But if you have the budget, you
Chapter 3 ^ Find Your Bottlenecks y ]
should certainly consider getting a new monitor if you find that yours bothers
your eyes or affects your ability to concentrate.
-f My Mac doesn't display enough colors. You might find when you’re dealing with
computer images, whether on Web pages or in a program like Photoshop,
your Mac isn’t capable of displaying as many colors as you might like.
Although the fix could be as simple as changing a control panel or similar
setting (see Chapter 25), it’s true that some Macs simply don’t have enough
video RAM (VRAM) to display more than hundreds or thousands of colors.
You might be able to upgrade that VRAM, however, or add another video card.
> Id like more desktop space in which to work. You could get a larger monitor, or
you can hook up additional monitors to your Mac. If you add a video card and
a second monitor, it’s possible to extend the virtual desktop of your Mac so
that you’re using both screens at the same time (see Figure 3-4).
Figure 3-4: The Monitors (or Monitors and
Sound on some Macs) control panel can be
used to choose which monitor is positioned
where and how the virtual desktop will be
arranged.
-f My print quality is low. If you have a dot matrix printer, an old inkjet, or even
an aging laser printer, you may not be completely happy with the quality. In
most cases, the best plan is to upgrade to a new printer, although you should
also test your printer thoroughly to ensure you’re getting the most out of your
ink or toner cartridges. (Printer troubleshooting is covered in Chapter 26.)
’f / want my inkjet to print in color. A few Apple and Hewlett Packard inkjets
(especially if they’re a few years old) shipped as black-and-white printers, but
could be upgraded to color using a special add-on kit. If you fit in this group,
72 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
you can upgrade very quickly to color. Others will probably need to buy a new
printer, though.
4 I need Postscript quality output, hut my printer isn 7 capable of it. The confusing
world of Mac fonts rears its head every once in a while, resulting in jagged
print, confusing problems, and poor print quality. But you can try a few other
things before you rush out to buy a new printer, including software addons
and font fixes.
4 I need to print more images on a page, but my laser printer can 7 do it. If you
don’t have enough printer RAM or your printer’s settings are a tad screwy,
you might not be using the RAM most effectively. A laser printer needs
enough RAM to create a digital image of the entire page before it can be
printed. If the printer runs out of RAM before it's ready to print, you get an
error message, and an incomplete page comes out of the printer.
4 / hate my keyboard. You can easily buy and install a new keyboard for your
Mac. You can even install it many feet away from the Mac, along with a
monitor and other peripherals for presentations or kiosks, if necessary.
4 I want a new mouse. Mac OS 8 and above includes contextual menus, which
pop up when you Ctrl-Click a window or document on your Mac. With an ADB
mouse that has two or more buttons, you can often program a button to do
the Ctrl-Click for you, making it a simple matter to pop up contextual menus
all over the place. Figure 3-5 shows the Kensington Turbo Mouse program in
action.
4 / hate driving, flying, shooting with the keyboard. All sorts of gaming controls,
such as steering wheels, flight yokes, and joysticks, are available for the Mac.
Some of them work in conjunction with your mouse (or in addition to it),
enabling you to use the devices in normal programs, too, which may be
helpful for people with wrist pain, arm trouble, or other physical challenges.
4 I need to work with Intel-compatible PCs. Reading and working with PC floppies
takes nothing more than System 7.5 (or above) and the correct settings in
software. To run PC (DOS, Windows, OS/2) programs, you’ll need a software
emulator or a hardware upgrade card that includes a Pentium processor (or
Pentium-like processor from Cyrix Corp.) and connectors that let you hook up
PC peripherals. You can also network your Mac to a PC local area network,
network a PC into a Mac workgroup, or print from a Mac to a PC printer — all
with the correct hardware add-ons, of course.
4 My Mac doesn 7 sound very good. Most Macs have stereo outputs that can be
used with stereo receivers or powered speakers to enrich the multimedia
experience. If you need it, you can also add expansion cards that enable
you to use your Mac as a digital mixing board, accepting multiple inputs and
mixing them together as they’re digitally recorded. Or, hook up a MIDI device
and have your Mac read music and play instruments automatically.
Chapter 3 4 ^ Find Your Bottlenecks 73
Figure 3-5: Using a programmable mouse, you can add
functions to mouse buttons to make them more convenient
than keystroke combinations or selecting menu items.
None of these are bottlenecks in your Mac system itself; instead, they’re
bottlenecks that keep you from getting quality work done. Any of these upgrades
that you consider important should be addressed just as you might address speed
issues. In fact, you might want to upgrade or repair a couple of these problems
before you focus on speed. If your business is about writing, designing, or printing,
for instance, you may want to get a better monitor, printer, or scanner right now —
even before you boost the processor in your Mac.
Summary
^ A big part of upgrading is determining the bottlenecks in your system. Like
automobile traffic, bottlenecks are jams in your system that don’t allow data
to flow quickly and efficiently. Sometimes freeing up a relatively insignificant
bottleneck results in great performance for your entire Mac.
4 Your Mac may seem to be slowing down for one of two reasons: First, you
haven’t properly maintained your hard drive. Or, it can slow down if you
install newer programs that require more RAM and processing power than
the older programs that you’re replacing.
-f Determining the exact nature of your bottleneck means diagnosing the
problem based on the symptoms. What slowdowns or quality problems is
your Mac exhibiting?
File Your
Upgrade Flight
Plan
M any Mac owners make the mistake of upgrading
without a proper plan of attack. That’s not to say I’m
much of a list writer or flowchart guy myself — but 1 do try to
ruminate a bit over additions to my Mac. After all, you want to
get the best performance and quality you possibly can for the
least amount of money, and you need to do it in a way that
makes sense for the way you compute. That’s why it’s
important to know what upgrades are possible, understand
how your Mac works, and learn the secrets of rooting out
your Mac’s bottlenecks.
If you’ve read the chapters before this one, you probably
have that much knowledge under your belt. Now you’re ready
to make the upgrading (and repair) decisions that will affect
your system. You’ll then need to prepare for the upgrade itself,
including a look at the tools you’ll want to have handy and
some of the software diagnostics that might help you in your
quest.
^ 4 4 ^
In This Chapter
Determine your needs
and wants
Chart: Upgrade
paths for every Mac
Can you do this
upgrade on your
own?
Tools you need for
upgrading
> 4 ♦
Determining Your Needs
and Wants
As discussed in Chapter 3, bottlenecks can be any single part
of your Mac that slows down the entire system because, like a
traffic jam, that component doesn’t let enough data get
through. After you’ve identified the potential bottlenecks in
your system, it’s important to figure out exactly which need to
be addressed immediately and which should be dealt with
76 Part I -f Getting Ready to Upgrade
later, especially if budget is an issue. In this case, you need to decide what you
absolutely have to upgrade right away (to maintain acceptable productivity levels)
and what you want to upgrade as soon as possible (to maintain acceptable fun-to-
work-with levels).
Unless you’ll have to grab money out of your family’s weekly food budget to
upgrade your Mac, I recommend that you consider any productivity-enhancing tool
a “need-to-have-it” upgrade. That includes things like drawing tablets, faster
printers, and big monitors (if these things could possibly help). 1 also want you to
consider upgrades that are more comfortable, ergonomically pleasing, or just a tad
bit of fun to work with. You may not have the budget for all these things
immediately, but these “wants” should really be high enough on the list that you
consider them soon.
Now make your list. Fire up ClarisWorks, SimpleText, or just grab a pen and make a
note of the upgrades you think fall in the “Need” column and those that go in the
“Want” column. Don’t forget to prioritize based not just on preference, but also on
which bottlenecks are most extreme in your system. If you desperately need RAM,
put it at the top of the needs list. If you really think a new CPU would help
immeasurably, put it high on the needs list, too. If you can’t think of anything cooler
than a fighter pilot’s joystick, consider putting that one high on the wants list.
Maybe you can get around to it if your needs don’t overwhelm your budget first.
What will it cost?
With your list in hand, you’re ready to figure out how the upgrade can be
accomplished and how much, roughly, it will cost. Table 4-1 focuses on the major
upgrades for overcoming speed and quality bottlenecks.
Table 4-1
Upgrade Possibilities, Results, and Costs
Upgraded
Component
Subsystem Affected
How Upgraded
Cost
Memory
Processing
RAM module
S2-S10perMB
CPU
Processing
Expansion card
Daughterboard
Clock enhancement
Chip upgrade
$500-$2,000
$500-$2,000
S75-S250
S250-S 1,000
Cache RAM
Processing
RAM module
$75-5250 per MB
Logic board
Processing
Replace board
$500-52,000+
Hard drive
Storage
Internal/External drive
550-5150 per GB
chapter 4 ♦ File Your Upgrade Flight Plan *77
Upgraded
Component
Subsystem Affected
How Upgraded
Cost
Removable
drive
Storage
Internal/External drive
$100-$ 1,500
Modem
Input/Output
Internal/External
device
$50-$400
Network
adapter
Input/Output
Expansion card
$100-$400
Network
transceiver
Input/Output
External cabling
$25-$ 150
Hub
Input/Output
Connect networked
Macs
$50-$500
ISDN adapter
Input/Output
Internal/External
device
$250-$750
Video card
Input/Output
Expansion card
$250-$2,000+
Video
accelerator
Input/Output
Expansion card
$150-$500
Printer
Input/Output
External device
$200-$5,000
Monitor
Input/Output
External device
$300-$2,500
Scanner
Input/Output
External device
(serial); External
device (SCSI)
$100-$500;
$250-$2,000
Speakers
Input/Output
External device
(sound-out)
$25-$500
Microphone
Input/Output
External device
(sound-ln)
$5-$250
MIDI
Input/Output
External switch box
$50-$ 150
Take each item and add it to your list, prioritizing based not only on need, but also
on cost. If you find that your list is getting out of hand costwise, you have a
different decision to consider first — whether you should spend a great deal of
money up front for an overhaul or a new system.
Obviously, there’s quite a bit of play in many of these prices. One way to get the
latest prices is to pick up a copy of a recent Mac-oriented magazine (such as
Macworld) and check the pages of ads that generally appear toward the back of the
magazine. Once you know how much these upgrades are going to set you back, you
can make a better decision as to what needs to be upgraded immediately and what
can wait for a while.
78 Part I -f Getting Ready to Upgrade
List for my Power Macintosh 6100 system
As I write this, Tm personally interested in upgrading a Power Macintosh 6100 system for
use as a workstation here in my office for people I bring in as Web designers and for other
jobs. It needs to be capable of handling graphics, but it doesn't have to be decked out for a
high-end artist. It's already an AV model, meaning it includes a video card that can accept
video input from a VCR or camcorder. I don't use it that much, but, along with built-in video,
this 6100 can already drive two monitors -one can even be a 20" monitor with millions of
colors.
What it's lacking though, is hard drive space and speed. So, for my list. I'm looking at a few
different options (text in parentheses represents an alternative choice):
To Be Upgraded
What Upgrade?
Cost
Processor
ToG3
$700
(Processor
To 604e
$400)
(Cache RAM
To 512k
$75)
(Processor clock
To 83MHz
$75)
Hard drive
Add 2GB
$250
Adding a 604e processor and cache RAM would amount to nearly $500, so I'm probably
better off going with the high-end G3 upgrade. (The cache RAM is rendered fairly useless
once a G3 upgrade is installed.) I could also choose to boost the clock speed on the 6100
from 60MHz to 83MHz, which might result in a 30 percent gain in processing power. Along
with the cache RAM, the clock upgrade would offer a slightly perceivable speed gain. It
wouldn't last as long as a G3 upgrade, though, which offers a 500 to 800 percent speed
gain and might make the system very usable for two or three more years.
More hard drive space is immediately necessary. Because of the nature of the Power Mac
6100's case. I'm limited to either replacing the existing hard drive or installing an external
SCSI model. I'll opt for the external drive, even though it's a bit more expensive than an
internal drive, because it will bring the total drive space to about 2.5GB for this Mac.
For me, this is a business Mac that still has about one-and-a-half years of (tax-related)
depreciation left before its been completely written-off. So, I'm going to invest for a long-
haul solution that can make the Mac worth using for at least two years or so. Otherwise, I
might opt for a cheaper solution that would keep the machine in service only six months or
a year, especially if I see reason to buy a new system down the road.
Chapter 4 -f File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 7 Q
yVipli. Don't forget to check the Web-based stores mentioned in Chapter 1 if you're trying to
find pricing for upgrades to your Mac
How can you upgrade?
Before you can move forward with your upgrading, your plan needs to include a
look at your current system and your options for upgrading. Every Mac system is
slightly different, with different types and numbers of upgrade slots, different RAM
requirements and capabilities, and, occasionally, even different ports on the back of
the machine.
You may decide that you’re more adept at external upgrades than internal ones, or
that you only have a certain amount of available slots and ports, and you’d like to
save one of the internal slots for a more important upgrade. Or, maybe your Mac
has a special slot for a particular upgrade — knowing that beforehand can help you
decide what sort of add-on you need and how much it’ll cost you.
Upgrading questions
To plan your upgrade, you’ll need to know a few things about your particular Mac.
Specifically, you need to ask yourself the following:
^ What slots do I have available? Whether you’re upgrading by adding a RAM
module, an expansion card, or even a CPU daughtercard, you’ll need to know
how many slots your Mac came with and how many you have available for a
particular upgrade. Consult the chapter in Part II that relates to the upgrade
you’re trying to perform to learn more about the slots available in most Mac
models,
4“ What ports do / have available? Again, different Macs have varying numbers of
ports and types of connections available. If your SCSI port is already taken by
a number of external peripherals, are you able to add another SCSI device to
that chain of devices? Does your Mac include a stereo sound-in port, or would
you need to add a sound card for audio recording? Depending on your needs,
you’ll need to explore the back side of your Mac to see what ports you have to
work with.
•f Is anything full or overloaded? If you have a non-network printer and an
external modem, your serial ports (modem and printer ports) are probably
completely full. If you want to add a page scanner, you’ll need to either
consider a SCSI version or some sort of contraption to help you switch
between one or the other of your peripherals (see Figure 4-1). If you have
a few internal SCSI devices, you may be filling up that chain; you’ll need to
determine what SCSI addresses, if any, are left. You also need to avoid
overloading any one port or expansion card with devices — you may be
slowing your SCSI chain down if it includes several small hard drives
(you’d be better off with one large one), or you might have to switch your
ports so often that it becomes tiresome cmd counterproductive.
80 Part I 4' Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 4-1: A simple data switch (this is a Mac serial version made
by Belkin Components) can be used to switch a serial port between
two devices, such as a printer and a page scanner.
Specific upgrade paths
Almost every Mac model has its own unique upgrading abilities, although some
later Mac models share similar characteristics. Over the years Apple’s approach
has been reactionary — designing machines that complied with customers’ wishes
as they were made known. The original Mac 128k was hardly upgradeable at all —
an interesting gambit that was later overturned with the six-slot Mac II. Since that
time, nearly every Mac and Mac OS clone model makes it easy for you to get into
the case for a little user upgrading, although the options for upgrading can vary
widely.
Table 4-2 shows you many of the more popular Macintosh and Mac OS clone
models and their basic component upgrade paths.
If your model isn't listed, it may be too new for inclusion. Check http: //www .mac-
upgrade . com for updates.
Chapter 4 File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 3 1
Table 4-2
Upgrade Slots and Ports for Major Mac OS Models
Mac OS
Model
Modem
Port?
Printer
Port?
ADB Port?
Other
Ports?
Slots?
Mac 128k
Yes^
Yes'
No
N/A
None
Mac 512k
Yes'
Yes'
No
N/A
None
Classic
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
None
Classic II
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
None
Color Classic
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
1 LC PDS
Plus
Yes
Yes
No
N/A
None
SE
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
1 SE PDS
SE/30
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
1 SE/30 PDS
Mac II, llx
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
6 NuBus
llci, Ilex
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
3 NuBus
llfx
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
6 NuBus, 1 PDS
llsi
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
1 NuBus or PDS
livi, llvx,
Performa 600
/600CD;
Centris 650,
Quadra 650
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
3 NuBus, 1 PDS
Performa 400,
405, 410, 430,
450; Performa
475, 476; LC,
LC 475, LC 520
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
LCPDS
Performa 550,
560; LC 550
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
LC PDS
Performa 575,
577, 578;
LC575
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
LC PDS,
comm
Performa 580;
LC580
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
LC PDS,
comm, video
LC II
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
LC PDS
C continued)
82 Part I ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Table 4-2 (continued)
Mac OS
Model
Modem
Port?
Printer
Port?
ADB Port?
other Slots?
Ports?
Performa 450,
460; LC III
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A LC III PDS,
Quadra 605
Mac TV
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A None
Performa 630,
630CD, 631 CD,
635CD, 636CD,
637CD, 638CD;
LC630
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A LC PDS, comm,
video
Performa 630/
640D05
Yes
Yes
Yes
PC game"^ comm,
video
Quadra 610/
610DOS
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
PCgame^ LC PDS
Quadra 630
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A LC III PDS,
comm, video,
TV
Centris, Quadra
600AV
GeoPort
Yes
Yes
Video
in/out
NuBus or
PDS3
Quadra 700
Yes
Yes
Yes, 2
N/A
2 NuBus, 1 PDS
Quadra 800
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
3 NuBus, 1 PDS
Quadra 840AV
GeoPort
Yes
Yes
Video
in/out
3 NuBus
Quadra 900/950 Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
6100AV, GeoPort
M7100, 7100AV GeoPort
PM 8100,8100AV GeoPort
Performa 6200,
6218
Performa 6205,
6214CD, 6290;
PM6200
Yes
Yes
'GeoPon
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
Yes
"Ves
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Video
in/out^
Video
in/out^
Video
in/out^
N/A
N/A
5 NuBus, 1 PDS
1 6100DOS;
NuBus or PDS23
PDS, 3
NuBus^
3 NuBus^
LC III PDS,
comm, video
LC III PDS,
comm, video,
TV
Chapter 4 4 - File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 83
Mac OS
Model
Modem
Port?
Printer
Port?
ADB Port?
Other
Ports?
Slots?
Performa 6216,
6220, 6230
Yes
GeoPort^
Yes
N/A
Comm, video,
tuner
Performa 6300,
6320
Yes
GeoPort®
Yes
N/A
LC III PDS,
comm, video,
TV
Performa 6360
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
PCI, comm,
video, TV
Performa 6400,
PM 6400
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
2 PCI, comm,
video, TV
Performa 521 5CD,
5260
Yes
GeoPort®
Yes
N/A
LC III PDS,
comm, video
LC 5200/5300
Yes
Yes
Yes
N/A
LC III PDS,
comm, video,
TV
LC 5500, PM 5500
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
PCI (7"), PCI-
based comm,
video, TV
PM 4400, 4400PC
GeoPort
GeoPort®
Yes
PC game''
2PC|2
PM 6500
GeoPort
GeoPort®
Yes
N/A
2 PCI, PCI
comm, video,
TV
PM 7200
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
2 PCI
PM 7200/
120, 7200PC
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
PC gams'*
3 PC|2
PM 7500, 7600
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
Video
in/out
3 PCI, DAV
codec
PM 7300, 7300PC
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
PC game
PM 8500, 8600
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
Video
in/out
3 PCI, DAV
codec
PM 9500, 9600
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
6 PCI
iMac
N/A
N/A
N/A
USB, 2
N/A
( continued)
84 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
Table 4-2 (continued)
Mac OS
Modem Printer
ADB Port? Other Slots?
Model
Port? Port?
Ports?
20th Mac
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
Video
in/out
PCI (7"), PCI-
based comm,
video, TV
PM G3
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
video(8]
in/out
1 3 PCI
Mac
N/A
N/A
N/A
USB, 2
N/A
Power Computing Systems
Power 100/120
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 NuBus, 1 PDS
PowerBase
180, 200, 240
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
PS/2 3 PCI
mouse/key
PowerWave
120, 132, 150
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PCP
PowerCun/e
120; 3 PCI
PowerCenter
150/166/180
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
120/132;
PowerCenter
Pro 180,210,
240
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PC|2
PowerTower
Pro; 180, 200,
225, 250
Motorola Systems
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
6PC|2
StarMax 3000 MT
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
5 PC|2
StarMax 3000 DT
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PCI
StarMax 4000
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
5PC|2
StarMax 5000
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
5 PCI PC|27
UMAX Systems
c500 series
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
2 PCI
c600 series
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PCI
C600X/240
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PC|2
Chapter 4 4 - File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 05
Mac OS
Model
Modem
Port?
Printer
Port?
ADB Port? Other
Ports?
Slots?
C600X/280
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes
N/A
3 PCP
j700 series
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes, 2
N/A
4 PC|2
s900 series
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes,2
N/A
6PC|2
S900/250, S900i/
250, S900DP/250
GeoPort
GeoPort
Yes, 2
N/A
6 POP
1 Early Macs had a 9-pin serial port configuration that differs from the rounded Din-8 connectors of modern Macs.
2 A DOS-compatible, AV, Video or SCSI card fills one available expansion slot.
3 Requires NuBus adapter for PDS slot.
4 Only on AV or DOS-compatible model.
5 Features high-speed NuBus burst mode.
6 Used by Communications Slot modem.
7 Two expansion slots are already filled.
Although most PCI cards are 7-inch cards, it’s important to know the size of the
card and the available slots in your Mac before upgrading. In some cases, a 12-inch
slot is required, and your Mac may or may not have a 12-inch slot available. Other
caveats include Macs that are built with cases too low to hold NuBus or PCI cards
that themselves are built to a nonstandard height — check your Mac’s
documentation to ensure correct sizing. And, you may notice that some of the
“pizza box” style of Macs (that is, those that have very low profile cases — Quadra
610 and Power Macintosh 6100, for example) often require an adapter for their one
PDS slot so that it can accept a NuBus card. (The adapter actually enables you to
install the card sideways so that it will fit in the low-slung case.)
Most Power Macintosh-equivalent computers feature GeoPort-compatible serial
ports, allowing for faster throughput and some unique features when compared to
older Macs. GeoPort Macs can use the Apple GeoPort adapter, for instance, and
connect to online services and the Internet without using a dedicated modem;
instead, the modem is emulated by the Mac’s PowerPC processor. (In the cases of
non-PowerPC AV Macs, modem capabilities are emulated on a separate multimedia
processor.) This also enables you to hook the Mac up to a phone line and use it as a
speaker phone, a digital answering machine, and more — all without a modem.
Figure 4-2 shows a GeoPort adapter.
86 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 4-2: The GeoPort adapter, often called a pod, can be used
to connect your AV or Power Mac to a phone line, forgoing the need
for a modem.
Nearly all Macs also feature Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) ports, which enable you
to install additional peripherals, usually for input and output. The ADB port is
used for the keyboard and mouse, but other devices — drawing tablets, trackballs,
telephony devices, and even some modems — use the ADB port to connect to the
Mac and draw enough electricity to operate.
If your Mac is a DOS-compatible version, it most likely includes additional ports for
Windows or DOS to work with, Including a PC game port (which can accept two PC
joysticks for game play) and a special VGA port for hooking up PC video. Most DOS
cards enable you to use either two monitors (one for DOS, one for Mac) or a single
monitor, employing a special patch cable to connect both the Mac’s internal video
and the PC’s video connector to a single monitor.
The iMac, introduced in the summer of 1998, has none of the traditional Mac
ports, opting instead for two Universal Serial Bus (USB) ports that will support
the keyboard, mouse, and all upgrading options. The iMac has a proprietary
internal slot.
chapter 4 File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 37
Expansion cards: PDS, NuBus, and PCI
When the original Mac 128k was designed, a conscious decision was made (many
say it was made specifically by Steve Jobs) to avoid including an expansion slot,
even though such slots were available and popular on the existing Apple 11 series of
computers. The thinking seemed to be that Macs were supposed to be the easiest
computers in the world to use, so they should not have confusing technical
capabilities like internal expansion.
Yet despite the potential for confusion, enough early Mac users and potential Mac
users requested slot upgrades to warrant a complete change in tactics by Apple.
The Mac SE featured a special PDS slot. The Mac 11 was an even more radical change
from the original Mac philosophy, rolling off the assembly line with a total of six
NuBus slots.
Since that time, nearly every Mac made (aside from PowerBooks, Mac Classic
models, and the Mac TV) has had some number of internal slots, although the
number certainly varies widely. If you’ve already looked up your Mac earlier in
Table 4-2, you’re aware of the slots you have available for internal upgrading. The
question becomes this: Why are there so many different kinds of slots?
Processor Direct Slots
PDS slots were first introduced in the Mac SE, enabling that model of Mac to be
upgraded for better video capabilities or faster processing. As would eventually
be the case with most PDS slots in Macs, the SE’s slots were designed specifically
to accept a card created for the SE. In fact, because a PDS slot is directly tied to the
processor in a Mac, it must be designed specifically to work with your Mac model
(or a series of similar models). Unlike PDS cards, NuBus and PCI cards both use an
intermediary on the logic board for communicating with the processor; this is why
NuBus and PCI cards are interchangable between Mac models.
Table 4-3 shows the different types of PDS cards that must be used with particular
Mac models.
88 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Table 4-3
Mac Models and PDS Types
Mac Model/Series
PDS Type
Looks Like
Notes
Mac SE
SE PDS
96-pin connector
MacLC
LCPDS
120-pin connector
Many PDS slots are
LC-compatible,
including Performa and
PowerMac models
Mac 5E/30
SE/30 PDS
120-pin connector
Compatible with some
llfx, llsi cards
Mac llfx
llfx PDS
120-pin connector
Compatible with some
SE/30, llsi cards
Mac llsi
llsi PDS
120-pin connector
Compatible with some
SE/30, llfx cards
LC 11, LC III
030 PDS
96-pin connector
Also LCIII PDS;
compatible with LC
PDS
Quadra, Centris
040 PDS
140-pin connector
On all 040 models
except Powerbooks and
AV Macs (The
Centris/Quadra
610/660AV can share
some PDS cards.)
Power Macintosh
6100, 7100,8100
601 PDS
91 -pin connector
Also on Performa
61 XX series
NuBus cards
A NuBus card is a 32-bit-wide expansion technology that sits on an expansion
bus — that is, it doesn’t have a direct line to the processor, like a PDS slot does.
That also means you can have more than one NuBus slot. Theoretically, the limit
is 16 NuBus slots, although no Mac model has ever come close. The most you’ll
see in a shipping model is 6 slots (Mac 11, Mac llfx), and that many NuBus slots is
pretty rare. More often, Macs are configured with 3 NuBus slots or so, as shown in
Figure 4-3.
Chapter 4 4 - File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 89
Figure 4-3: The NuBus slots in a Mac II series computer
NuBus cards are self-configuring: You simply install them in their slots and start up
your Mac to begin using them. The Mac OS Slot Manager software assigns each
NuBus card a slot number as the Mac goes through its startup process. Data is then
transferred between the CPU and the NuBus cards by way of bus interface units, or
chips on the logic board that are responsible for managing the data flow.
NuBus is a Texas Instruments standard that was used pretty much exclusively by
Apple in Macintosh computers, enabling it to be optimized for use with Macs in
later iterations. Both the NuBus ‘90 and the PowerPC NuBus standards enabled the
cards to work more quickly as new, faster Macs were released.
Although still immensely popular for upgrading aging Macs, NuBus isn’t quite the
star of the Mac OS industry that it once was. Instead, the PCI standard has taken
over for both Macs and Intel-compatible PCs.
PCI cards
If your Mac is a Power Macintosh or a Performa — or Mac OS clone — based on the
second-generation PowerPC processors (the 603 and 604 family of processors),
your Mac also comes with a PCI expansion bus. This bus, originally developed by
Intel Corporation as a replacement for the ISA bus, fits in very nicely in Macs, as
well as in Intel-compatible PCs. (Note that not all Performa models include an
available PCI card slot, even though they use the PCI bus.)
90 Part I > Getting Ready to Upgrade
This means two things: First, the PCI standard allows for faster connections and
throughput than NuBus cards, making it better for video, multimedia, and network
communications cards that can take advantage of the extra speed. Second,
adhering to the PCI standard means that in many cases all an Intel-compatible PCI
card vendor has to do is write Mac OS driver software for their card, and it can then
be used in a Macintosh. That results in more choices for Mac users.
Web Having trouble finding a Mac-compatible PCI card? Apple's Tech Info Library
lui iviacii iLu^i I v.uiiipuicid Willi rv.^1 diiv.iMri uii uic uua ui liic CA^aiidiuii caiu. np^ie
also advises that certain cards, originally designed for Intel-compatible PCs, can be
easily repurposed for Macs, so long as they don't have to be active as your Mac starts
up (for instance, a video card needs to be active, but a communications card doesn't).
Check the manufacturer's Web site for Mac driver software you can download.
PCI cards come in two basic sizes — 7 inches and 12 inches — and which to use
depends on how much circuitry is required to get the board up and running. Some
Mac systems aren’t equipped to handle the full 12-inch cards. You should find out
about your system before you buy a PCI upgrade card. (Figure 4-4 shows both card
sizes.)
Figure 4-4: Make sure the PCI card you buy will fit your Mac.
chapter 4 -f File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 9 1
Special slots for special Macs
PCI, NuBus, and PDS are the standard types of upgrade cards in the Mac industry -but
the/re not the only ones. In the past, Apple has also offered computers special upgrade
slots designed specifically for one function or another, instead of being upgrade generalists
like PCI- and NuBus-standard slots.
For the most part, these special slots have been in the Performa line of Macs. These home-
oriented systems were given special slots that could be used with Apple brand and some
third-party upgrades for high-end capabilities like networking, adding a TV tuner, and cap-
turing digital video. Instead of the more expensive professional versions of these cards,
Apple's upgrades were cheaper (usually less than S200 new) and easy to add to the con-
sumer-oriented Performa systems.
These days, upgrades for the Performa Communications (comm) slot, the video in/out
slot, and the TV tuner slot are harder to come by, but not impossible. If you own a compat-
ible Performa or Power Mac series computer that includes comm slots, and want to
upgrade using these slots, your best bet is to shop the Mac catalog stores and Mac-oriented
classified ads.
Can You Do It Yourself?
For quite some time I’ve hosted a radio call-in show dedicated to answering
people’s questions about both Intel-compatible PC and Macintosh upgrading.
And just as often as I get a caller who seems to be incredibly excited about
upgrading his or her system, 1 come across another who isn’t thrilled at the
prospect of opening the computer’s case and messing around with the innards.
In fact, I’ve talked to folks who would rather just sell a computer and start over
before they tackle something like upgrading, “Should I get more RAM or just buy
a new computer?” sure isn’t a dumb question, but it does suggest a certain
trepidation.
Three types of upgrades
Just in case you need some reassurance, here it is: You can easily perform most
upgrades on your own. Most of them barely even involve a screwdriver (you can
thank Apple’s engineers for that), and the upgrades that do require some assembly
are still designed for regular folks to accomplish. In fact, I look on upgrading as
having three basic levels. Anyone can accomplish any of these, but if upgrading
makes you uncomfortable, you can decide to leave the more complex operations to
the professionals. Here are the three types of upgrades:
92 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
Tip
4 External upgrades. Rarely requiring any special tools, an external upgrade
usually involves plugging a peripheral into an available port on the back of
your Mac.
4 Slot upgrades. These require you to open your Mac’s case, but they’re usually
very straightforward: If you have a free slot, you just plug the expansion card
into it. This goes for RAM, too, which is easily inserted into a SIMM or DIMM
socket without requiring a degree in any of the hard sciences.
4 Logic board-level upgrades. These can get a bit more serious, but they’re by
no means frightening. Replacing a CPU chip, daughtercard, ROM chip, PRAM
battery, and similar upgrades do require that you ground yourself electrically
and dig into the innards of your Mac. But it’s certainly not impossible to do. In
fact, some folks find it fun to get into their Mac, add a small chip or two, and
fire the computer back up at twice its old speed!
External upgrades are a cakewalk. Anyone should feel comfortable doing them. The
only real rule of thumb to remember is this: Turn off your Mac before plugging or
unplugging peripherals into ports on the back of your Mac. There's enough power
discharge possible to damage the ports. IVe seen It happen.
The other two require tools, and you will need to get inside your Mac. It can be fun
though, even if you’re not the Indiana Jones of silicon. Go ahead and explore a bit,
as long as you take the precautions discussed in the following sections.
Tools youTI need
You do have to admit that, in many ways, computers are weird. What other
major electronic devices are we actually encouraged to take apart and mess with
ourselves? Any individual caught taking a screwdriver to the back of a television
set is immediately branded an engineer or a daredevil, if not worse. The idea of
popping a few more chips into your VCR is equally ludicrous. But with computers —
even Macs — it’s de rigueur. Never mind that what you paid for your Mac would
probably keep you in TVs and VCRs for decades.
If you’re planning to upgrade, you’ll need to get inside that case. And while you’re
there, you’ll be making a few changes, so you’ll need tools for that. For the most
part, you don’t need to buy specialized Mac or PC upgrading tools from the
computer store. Instead, a few typical household tools will suffice, along with a
specialty item or two:
4 Flathead screwdriver
4 Phillips-head screwdriver
Chapter 4 ^ File Your Upgrade Flight Plan Q3
> Small flashlight
> Paper clip
4- Antistatic containers/bags
4- Grounding strap
Flathead screws aren’t terribly typical on your standard Mac, but flathead
screwdrivers can be useful nonetheless. Many Mac cases are designed to be pried
open with no tools other than your fingers. Unfortunately, it seems that in some
cases Apple didn’t actually mean human fingers, as their cases can stick together
sometimes, even if they were designed with the best intentions. In those cases a
flathead screwdriver can be used to gently create space between a Mac’s chassis
and its outer shell of plastic. (With the original Mac classic form-factor Macs, a
putty knife or case spreader is a better option.)
The Phillips screwdriver is used more conventionally — to remove screws. Whether
or not your Mac has a quick-release case, it’ll still probably need to have some
screws removed, because they’re used for everything from mounting hard drives to
keeping expansion cards inline.
The flashlight can be a penlight or something slightly bigger, just to help you look
around inside a full Mac. Get enough expansion cards and internal drives in your
Mac and you’ll find that a little light is necessary to see components on the logic
board.
The jack-of-all-trades in your arsenal is a common, but sturdy, paper clip. Paper
clips are handy for at least two situations — reaching hard to switch DIP switches
(on/off switches usually used to change SCSI ID numbers on storage devices) and
ejecting problem disks from floppy drives and removable drives.
You may also want a can of compressed air handy for blowing dust out of the case
and away from your internal components. Remember that compressed air can be
very cold and cause condensation, so don’t spray it directly on or closely to circuit
boards and other exposed electronics. Instead, keep it a few feet away and just
blow the dust out. An amazing amount of dust in a system can cause overheating
and/or sporadic behavior from the Mac.
If you have a classic-style (all-in-one) Mac or a PowerBook, you'll also need a Torx
screwdriver if you plan to open the case. The process is described in Chapter 5 for
Mac Classics and Chapter 20 for PowerBooks.
The screwdrivers make sense, but what about that other stuff? Most likely, any
hardware upgrade you receive will come with an antistatic bag or packaging of
some sort. If you’re taking a component out of your Mac, try to place it immediately
in such an antistatic bag or container. (If one didn’t come with the components
94 Part I '¥ Getting Ready to Upgrade
youVe bought, you can probably buy or borrow an antistatic bag from a local
computer store.) Static electricity discharge — even from your fingers — can be
very damaging to computer components, potentially rendering them useless.
That’s also why you’ll want a grounding strap for serious upgrading. A grounding
strap is fixed to your wrist or ankle, effectively grounding you against static
discharge. That enables you to work with computer components without fear that
you’ll discharge electricity into any of the components.
The great "plug-it-in" debate
A grounding strap should be your first line of defense in upgrading, but it's not necessarily
the most popular way to guard against static electricity— at least among a certain school of
upgraders. Another way to avoid discharge damage is to keep the computer electrically
ground. That means leaving it plugged into the wall socket while you work on its innards.
While a computer is plugged in, touching any metal part of the power supply of chassis will
discharge static, enabling you to work in relative peace — except that there's now electrical
current running the computer and trickling through other components.
I know from personal experience that you can create quite a light show if you have your
Mac plugged in and you drop a screwdriver on the logic board. It's not a pretty light show
though, because it could give you a jolt, and it's almost always expensive when a computer
component fries.
1 think the best advice I've heard on the subject is this: Keep your Mac plugged in if you're
more worried about your components getting shocked than you are about your body get-
ting shocked. If you feel very strongly that your person should not be exposed to any elec-
tric shock, work with a grounding strap instead.
Tips for the upgrade
Finally, let’s take a look at some advice, both compiled from experts and from my
personal experience, that 1 can offer you before you undertake your upgrade. In
almost every case, your upgrade should come off without a hitch — after all, these
are Macs. But just to ensure success, take a look at these hints:
> Take your time. Give yourself quality, quiet time to complete the upgrade.
Studies show that nearly every task takes two-and-a-half times longer than
you thought it would to complete. When it comes to computer upgrading, we
can comfortably round up the time it will take to complete an upgrade to at
least three times longer than expected. If something goes wrong, it’s best that
it goes wrong during a slow evening, weekend, or some other time you’ve set
aside for improvements. Don’t start upgrading right before a big deadline.
Chapter 4 > File Your Upgrade Flight Plan 95
-f Back up your important data. I know it seems silly to backup your data if you’re
installing a new 3D video card, but it’s not. If you fry the computer and render
it useless, you’ll be wishing you had a removable media backup (like a Jaz
cartridge or a rewritable CD) that includes all your important spreadsheets,
songs, and journal entries. Otherwise, your Mac might be going to the repair
shop for a few days along with your important files.
^ Make space for upgrading. I like to have an entire table top, completely clear of
obstructions and junk, to finish an important upgrade. Give yourself six feet
by three feet or so, and don’t clutter the table with stuff you don’t need.
Include just your tools, hardware, instructions, and enough space for this
book.
4- Keep an empty bowl or coffee cup handy. Well, you’ve got to have someplace to
drop loose screws. A coffee cup or two for the screws you take out of your
system will save you the trouble of finding them again in the carpet — or the,
uh, pain of finding them again for those of you decide to store them in a
pocket or in your mouth. (You can use paper cups, but that’s not very eco-
conscious of you.)
4- Think things through. Here’s something I’ve actually done before: “I’ll just get
the instructions off the Internet while I’m upgrading.” The problem: I can’t get
on the Internet if my computer is lying in two on the table in front of me. A
little planning can go a long way in cases like these. Print out relevant
information, and don’t take your computer apart if you’re expecting an
important e-mail or fax.
4^ Make one change at a time. If you plan to install both new RAM and a new
video card, for instance, install each separately, and then piece things
together and test them out. Change one thing at a time, and then test between
each upgrade. This helps keep variables to a minimum if you need to
troubleshoot your Mac after completing each upgrade.
4- Don't leave the case off It’s usually OK to leave your Mac’s case cover off
while you’re testing a new upgrade, but don’t compute long-term with the
case cover off. Mac cases are designed so that air flows a specific way, and the
case requires its outer shell to make that happen. If the air doesn’t flow, your
components may overheat, regardless of the temperature in the room.
Finally, read the chapters in this book carefully and check out the sidebars
containing advice from the professionals. Someone somewhere has probably been
through a particular upgrade before and passed that information on, so you don’t
have to make the same mistakes.
96 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Summary
4 Before you upgrade, you should have a plan. Determine your needs and
wants, and then come up with a plan for attacking your Mac’s bottlenecks
while staying within your budget.
4 Every Mac is a little different. Check yours for ports, slots, and other ways of
upgrading, and know what options you have available before you start
shopping for the upgrade.
4 Know your cards. Does your Mac have a PDS slot or NuBus slot, or does it
need PCI cards for upgrading?
4 Get the right tools. You’ll need a few common household items and one or two
things from the computer store before you begin your upgrading adventure.
4 Lastly, take a few tips along for the ride. Before you start peeling that case
apart in the next chapter, take a moment to reflect on all the things others
such as myself have done WTong in their upgrading career. Most importantly,
take it slow and have fun.
Inside Your Mac
R eady to take your Mac apart? In this chapter, you’ll focus
almost completely on your Mac’s case — what’s on the
outside of it, how you get it off, and what’s inside when you
get there. You’ll determine the model of Macintosh that you
have so you can know exactly what upgrade paths you have at
your disposal. Once you know the model, you’re ready to take
the case off and peer inside.
With the case open, you’ll see what the internals of your Mac
look like, including the power supply, upgrade slots, memory
sockets, and CPU. Most importantly, opening the case gives
you an idea of what options you have left. What’s already been
upgraded, what slots are open still, and is there room for
internal peripherals like hard drives or CD-ROM drives? You’ll
know by the end of this chapter.
Determine Your Mac Model
The key to your Mac’s identity is the type of model and model
number found on the name badge that your Mac proudly
displays right up front for all to see (at least it’s up front on
most models). This model name and number will determine
what upgrades you can use, what system software you can
load, and what programs you can buy off the shelves at
computer stores.
The Mac model will also be useful for telling you what
processor you have, what upgrade options you have, and
other tidbits, such as how much RAM you can use and what
sort of memory modules you need to buy for upgrading. The
model name and number will also help you determine what
ports you have available and, in some cases, what the
limitations are on speed and storage upgrades.
^ ^ >
In This Chapter
What model do
you have?
Opening your
Mac's case
The innards revealed
How much space do
you have available?
^ ^ ^
98 Part I 4^ Gotting Ready to Upgrade
Knowing your Mac's model number will prove vital to using this book. Nearly every
upgrading chapter in Part II includes a comprehensive chart that tells you the vital
statistics involving your Mac or the Macs you support. You'll want to know your model
pretty intimately so you can find it easier on those charts.
I’ll discuss the naming conventions used by both Apple and the major clone
vendors. They always follow some sort of logic, but it may not be the logic you
were hoping for.
What's in an Apple's name?
You can make two generalizations about the way Apple comes up with model
names. First, the word portions of the names almost always indicate the market to
which Apple plans to sell the machine — which means the model names are not
necessarily indicative of the power that particular Macintosh offers. Second, the
numbers should go up when a Mac offers more speed and features, and they often
do. But numbers usually only go up relative to a product that Apple believes the
new product is replacing. Bottom line: Apple’s product numbers can end up being
more confusing than this paragraph.
I’ll try to elaborate. Apple has had about eight different product brand names over
the years, for example, Mac II, Mac LC, Performa, and so on. For the most part (at
least, since about 1989) these names have been designed to suggest which market
Apple is trying to sell the machine to. In many cases, the actual computer will be
identical (like the Quadra 630, Performa 630, and LC 630), with the only difference
being the peripherals that come with the machine and the bundled software.
Take a look at the different Mac brands and how they fit into Apple’s marketing
plans and their history. It’s an interesting story.
Macintosh
The original Macs weren’t really aimed at a particular market, because, for a while
at least, only one or two Mac models were being sold at a time. These Macs rarely
had numbers, opting Instead to denote the amount of RAM the Mac had (such as
the Mac 512k) before moving on to exciting name add-ons, such as Mac Plus, Mac
SE, and Mac SE/30. (Mac SE/30 isn’t a product number. The number is meant to
suggest that the SE/30 model uses a Motorola 68030 processor, unlike the 68000 in
its predecessors.)
I’m including the Mac Classic models in this category, although you could certainly
debate that the Macintosh Classic series was a slightly different brand. After all, the
Classic line would go on to Include the Mac Classic II, the Mac Color Classic, and
others. They all fit the all-in-one form factor though, so it’s safe enough to call them
all just Macintosh when it comes to branding.
Chapter 5 ^ Inside Your Mac 99
Let me also toss four other odd-ball machines in here that Apple has made over the
years — the Mac TV, the Mac Portable, the 20th Anniversary Macintosh, and the
iMac. Although each of them couldn’t be any more different from the other, they’ve
all had a unique place in Apple’s marketing and history of trying to reinvigorate the
amazing design success enjoyed by the original Macintosh. Apple’s latest attempt,
the iMac (see Figure 5-1), fits this category because I like it here; whether or not the
iMac becomes a strong model name that features add-on words or numbers as
Apple releases improved models remains to be seen.
Figure 5-1: The iMac is Apple's PowerPC G3-based foray into
the world of inexpensive but stylish home computers.
Macintosh II
Apple may have originally envisioned continuing the Mac series with a Mac II and a
Mac III, but ultimately this Mac series with the roman numeral came to be a brand
unto itself. The Mac II series represented an expandable Mac with a separate
monitor, making it distinct from the regular all-in-one Mac line of computers. The
Mac II also followed a unique lettering scheme for calling out different models.
Instead of the Mac II Plus, Apple opted to append lowercase letters to the II for
successors to the original Mac II, as in Mac Ilci, Mac Ilsi, and Mac Ilfx. Unfortunately,
the lettering scheme seemed to have absolutely no basis in logic: The Ilci is more
powerful than the Hex, for instance, and the IIx is one of the earlier Mac II series
computers, whereas the llsi came along later. See what I mecin? Clearly the
established order of the English alphabet had little influence on Apple’s naming
scheme.
100 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
Note
The funny thing is, there really is some reasoning behind it, according to technical
editor Dennis Cohen. (I didn’t know any of this stuff myself.) Here’s the deal: The
Ilex was the llx in a compact form, hence the addition of the c. The Ilci was a
compact II with internal video, so it gets both a c and an /. The llfx was the faster Ibr;
the Ilsi was a smaller Mac II with internal video. Now you know.
Although it was never official, rumor had it that a Mac advertising campaign centering
on music sensation Lawrence Welk's late 1980s comeback was part of the original
naming scheme. "And a Mac, and a Mac II..." were tough for the seasoned band direc-
tor to spit out on a steady beat, so the idea was canned after a few rehearsals. (Okay,
I made that up.)
Macintosh LC
LC originally stood for low cost, I believe, but historically LC is the Mac brand that’s
marketed directly to education customers. Although Apple doesn’t use the LC
brand much anymore, at the time regular retail consumers couldn’t really get their
hands on LC equipment unless it was through a “parent buy” program or some
similar promotion out of Apple’s education sales group.
The early LC models included roman numerals (LC II, LC III) but eventually turned
to product numbers that usually related to similar Quadra, Performa, or Power
Macintosh computers. The Quadra 630 and LC 630 are similar machines, for
instance, as are the LC 575 and the Performa 575. LC systems can include a monitor,
and many of the 500 and 5000 series LCs have built-in monitors (usually larger 14-
and 15-inch models). But that’s not a hard-and-fast rule — LC models just as often
don’t include monitors. LCs often come with Ethernet, differentiating them slightly
from the consumer models (which usually include modems). Today, Apple tends to
offer different models of the Power Macintosh line for education customers only
(for instance, the Power Macintosh 5500 line), but even that seems to be a dying
trend, as Apple continues to offer more build-to-order systems to all its customers.
Centris/Quadra
Although two separate brand names, the Centris line was fairly short-lived and,
occasionally, the same exact machine as the like-numbered Quadra. These were all
68040-based Macs that were the progeny of the Mac II line and the predecessors to
the original Power Macintosh line. Aimed at business and creative professionals,
the Quadras and Centrises (Centrisi?) usually came without monitors or keyboards
and with very little software. They were powerhouses for their time and relied on a
fairly straightforward numbering scheme that told you both the form factor (tower,
desktop, big desktop) and relative speed.
As far as numbers went, some made perfect sense: The Quadra 605, 610, 630 and
650 all stepped up in speed and features (although the 630 was a later addition
than the others). Other numbered schemes were a bit more odd — the Quadra
700 is less powerful than the 650, but comes in a tower case (it was also introduced
earlier than the 650). The 660AV offered a less powerful processor than the 650,
used a 610’s case, but offered advanced multimedia abilities and upgraded serial
ports. Go figure.
Chapter 5 4- Inside Your Mac 101
The Quadra 650 and 800: Upgrade heaven
A lot of Quadra 650s and Quadra 800s were sold in the early 1990s. These were very pop-
ular machines made in the heyday of Mac market share and sales volumes, and they
offered plenty of room for expansion, upgrades, and add-ons. Funny thing is, the/re still
good machines to own for a lot of these reasons.
Both the 650 and 800 can take on over 100MB of RAM, they both can accept PowerPC
upgrade cards, and both have logic boards that can be swapped out for Power Macintosh
7100 and 8100, respectively: that means not only first generation PowerPC performance,
but 604e or G3 performance with upgrade cards from Sonnet and Newer Technologies.
There are other tweaks, too, including plenty of NuBus slots for adding graphics cards and
other speed enhancements. In many cases, you can do this upgrading for less than the cost
of a new system - especially if you're already heavily invested in NuBus cards and peripher-
als for your 650 or 800. If you've got one of these Macs, hold on to it. Or, if you're shopping
the used market, you might consider grabbing one of these Macs for a rock-bottom price,
and then upgrading it. (Early Power Macs, like the 6100 and 7100, are great upgradeable
secondhand buys, too.)
Performa
Performa is the long-running consumer brand that Apple has traditionally offered in
home electronics and department stores such as Sears and Best Buy. The Performa
brand lasted about as long as Apple’s presence in these stores, ending its reign as
the consumer brand in early 1997 (in early 1998, Apple announced an exclusive
retail relationship with CompUSA, pulling its products from many consumer-
electronics stores). The name Performa is all about branding in Apple’s eyes;
Performas often come with monitors, always come with keyboards and mice,
usually feature modems, and always include a broad range of home computing and
educational software titles. The Performa 5400, for instance, offered a little bit of all
these things (see Figure 5-2).
The Performa line has often overlapped with the business and education brands
from Apple, including similar product numbers in many cases. For instance, the
Performa 6116 and the Power Macintosh 6100 are nearly identical computers. The
Performa has been around so long that it’s impossible to call it more or less
powerful than other Mac brands — some Performas are the same power level as
LCs, Mac IIs, Quadras, and even Power Macintoshes. The Performa 6400, last in the
Performa line, was based on a second-generation PowerPC 603e processor, no
speed slouch for its time. The Performa 400, by contrast, was the same basic
computer — processor, monitor, features — as the Mac Classic II.
102 Part I Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 5-2: Not only does the Performa 5400 feature a built-in
monitor and a home software package, but it honored another
Performa tradition of sharing its design with other Mac models. It's
a relabeled version of the Power Macintosh 5400, which is available
only to education customers (in the U.S.).
In almost all cases, a Performa will not feature built-in Ethernet for networking, as
do most business-oriented Macs. Instead, Performas almost always include a
bundled internal or external modem that can be used to access online services and
the Internet over phone lines.
You might notice something else unique about the Performa line — tons and tons of
model numbers. The expansion chart back in Chapter 4 showed entries like
“Performa 575, 576, 577, 578” — many more model numbers than you’d generally
find for other Mac models. (There was only an LC 575 and LC 580, by contrast.) This
is because Performa numbers changed slightly based on the software bundle and
(sometimes) the hardware included. A particular model, say the Performa 631 CD,
might include a faster modem, slightly different software, and a larger hard drive
compared to the similar 630CD. This might be because it was a follow-on product or
because it was sold in a different venue; at one time, Apple had different models for
computer stores versus electronics stores versus department stores.
Since that time, Apple’s focus on consolidating its brands has resulted in a two-step
process for consumer brands. First, the Performa brand was rolled into the Power
Macintosh line — specifically, the Performa 6400 became the Power Macintosh 6400
(briefly) followed by the Power Macintosh 6500 series. The 6500 series was sold as
Home, Small Business, and Creative Studio models, depending on included
expansion cards and the software included.
Chapter 5 Inside Your Mac 1 03
Once Apple moved to a build-to-order system, a single brand name became
applicable for pretty much the entire line of Macs offered — the Power Macintosh
G3 series. (The follow-on to this will likely be the Power Macintosh G4 series.) With
the build-to-order system in place, a customer can configure a Power Macintosh in
many different ways, according to their individual needs. This makes it convenient
for all sorts of customers, as well as for Apple, because the company no longer has
to create different brands and bundles to try to please all comers.
The only caveat in this plan so far is the iMac, a consumer-and-education-oriented
Mac (in some ways, a successor to the Performa) that comes in a single, standard
configuration. Whether the iMac becomes its own series of models (like Mac 11 and
Mac LC eventually did) remains to be seen. Apple is likely, though, to continue
sticking to only a few product names, at least for a while, as their business model
has become more oriented toward simplicity in recent years.
Power Macintosh
The Power Macintosh line began in early 1994 with the release of the first Mac
models based on the PowerPC processor and architecture. Originally positioned
as business machines only (and fairly expensive ones at that). Power Macintosh
computers used Quadra-style cases, were sold without keyboards and didn’t
include hefty software bundles. Eventually, however, the Power Macintosh line
would encompass most of the computers sold through business and consumer
retail outlets, including online stores and the Web-based Apple Store. First
generation Macs were the 6100, 7100, and 8100 models, all based on preexisting
Quadra cases and form factors. These Macs used NuBus expansion cards, enabling
Mac owners to make the transition more comfortably to the new PowerPC
architecture.
The Power Macintosh has gone through at least one significant transition since the
jump to the PowerPC processor — the second-generation Macs (unofficially called
“G2”) featured PowerPC 603 and 604 processors along with being the first Macs to
use the Intel-compatible standard PCI expansion bus. This generation of Macs
includes the Power Macintosh 6500, which represented the inclusion of Performa-
style machines in the Power Macintosh lineup. Other second-generation Power
Macs include the 4400, 7300, 7600, 8600, and 9600 models.
Second generation Power Macs have another thing going for them —
unprecedented upgrade capabilities. With the exception of the 4400 and 6500
models, all these Macs can accept daughtercard processor upgrades, allowing the
addition of a faster PowerPC 604 or a PowerPC 750 (G3) processor to the computer
by simply swapping an internal circuit board. This has resulted in quite an
aftermarket of processor upgrades.
The Power Macintosh G3 line is the third generation of Power Macintosh
computers, featuring the PowerPC 750 processor (alternatively called the Power PC
G3 processor) — a high-speed processor capable of reaching well beyond 300MHz.
The PowerPC 750 processor is also specially optimized for the Mac OS, enabling it
104 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
to perform remarkably well for a low-power, low-cost processor. The G3 and G4
processors beyond it hold serious promise for a new era of 500MHz to IGHz
(gigahertz) computing.
PowerBook
The PowerBook line of Macs represent Apple’s second foray into the world of a
portable Macintosh (the third, actually, if you include the original all-in-one Macs
that could be carried around in a huge bag). The Macintosh Portable was a rather
large Mac with a handle — somewhat in the spirit of an IBM Selectric typewriter —
that never really took off with consumers. (More successful was the Outbound
2030, an early attempt at a portable Mac OS clone machine. The Outbound was
very much like a laptop with a 33MHz 68030 processor, 14MB of RAM, and a decent
9-inch screen. Outbound bought old Mac Plus machines to retrieve the ROMs in
order to run the Mac OS legally on a clone. Outbound went out of business
sometime after Apple Introduced its very popular first round of PowerBook
computers.)
The PowerBook was a completely different story. Beginning with the simultaneous
release of the PowerBook 100, 140, and 170, the PowerBook was an almost
overnight sensation, with a reputation as a technology tool that was also a status
symbol in urban centers around the world. Later PowerBooks added to that
mystique when the 500 series became one of the most lauded portable computer
designs in the industry. (See Figure 5-3).
Figure 5-3: The PowerBook 500 series offered a sleek case,
upgrade options, and stereo sound, making it a popular Mac OS
portable.
chapter 5 4- Inside Your Mac ] 05
Apple made the transition to PowerPC with the PowerBook 5300 series, which was
notable for more bad characteristics than good, included some issues that are still
covered by Repair Extension Programs implemented by Apple. Later, the
PowerBook 1400 and 3400 series pulled Apple’s reputation for great PowerBooks
back out of the mud, followed by the raging success of the G3 and faster models.
The PowerBook had offered another branding element aside from the numbering
scheme — the Duo moniker had been used for a smaller line of compact
PowerBooks. PowerBook Duos offered no built-in floppy drive, for instance, but
tended to be a few pounds lighter than regular PowerBooks. The Duo series also
had the ability to hook up to a special Duo Dock, enabling the portable computer to
be used with a full-size monitor, keyboard, and additional peripherals.
The Duo line has been discontinued, although the PowerBook 2400 extends many of
its metaphors, as does the compact Apple eMate and its progeny. (Although the
Newton OS is no longer being developed as of this writing, a “consumer portable”
device is expected from Apple to fill the need for an ultra-compact Mac portable.)
Apple will most likely continue to make compact PowerBook and notebook
computer solutions into the foreseeable future, probably under the PowerBook
brand name.
What about the dones?
A thriving Mac OS clone market existed for only a few years in the mid-1990s. These
compatibles had their own names and numbering schemes to help buyers
understand their branding. Although each company had a unique (and occasionally
annoying) methodology for naming their machines, most of them were easy to
grasp if only because they didn’t offer as many models as Apple.
In this book, 1 focus almost exclusively on the three largest Mac OS vendors —
Power Computing, Motorola, and UMAX. Other Mac OS vendors tended to base
their systems on the offerings of the later two companies anyway, because
Motorola and UMAX both have had the right to sublicense the Mac OS.
The most complete reference IVe seen regarding Mac OS models is a site called
EveryMac (www.everymdc.com), where host Brock Kyle maintains detailed techni-
cal, configuration, and pricing information on every Mac model in the world.
Power Computing
Power Computing Corporation (PCC) was the original Mac clone manufacturer
and, over time, the most successful. In late 1997, when Apple decided to curtail the
sale of Mac clones, it did so by buying the assets of Power Computing for over $100
million. Apple is now responsible for maintaining Power Computing tech notes and
Web-based support, and any warranties are handled by a third party.
106 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
Power Computing information is maintained as a part of the Apple Tech Info Library,
available at http: //til .info.apple.com.
In its time as a Mac OS clone vendor, Power Computing came up with seven
different model names: Power, PowerWave, PowerBase, PowerCurve, PowerCenter,
PowerCenter Pro, and PowerTower Pro. Table 5-1 shows the differences.
Table 5-1
Power Computing Corporation Models
Model Name
Model Numbers
Description
Power
100, 120
First PCC machines, based on PowerPC
601
PowerWave
120, 132, 150
PCC’s first PCI-based Mac, based on
PowerPC 604
PowerCurve
120
PCC’s second PCI-based Mac, based on
PowerPC 601
PowerBase
180, 200, 240
PCC's consumer-oriented PCI Mac,
based on PowerPC 603e
PowerCenter
120, 132, 150, 166, 180
PCCs third PCI series, based on
PowerPC 604
PowerCenter Pro
180,210, 240
Update of PowerCenter for speed,
based on PowerPC 604e
PowerTower Pro
180, 200, 225, 250
PCC's high-end graphics workstation,
based on PowerPC 604e
No other vendor’s machines are based directly on the Power Computing models.
They tend to be fairly well behaved and were popular until Power Computing went
out of business (after Apple had paid for its core assets). The models can have
occasional odd problems due mostly to performance tweaks Power Computing
engineered on logic boards sold to them by Apple. Apple will probably be tracking
Power Computing-related issues for some time to come.
Every Power Computing machine sold is daughtercard-upgradeable, meaning you
can add higher-speed processors to existing Power Computing machines. These
Chapter 5 Inside Your Mac ”| 07
cards are available from a number of upgrade vendors, although slight differences
between Apple, Power Computing, and other Mac OS models make it necessary that
you read carefully before buying an upgrade daughtercard for a PCC machine. Very
little trouble has been reported for PCC compatibles that have been upgraded to
high-end 604e and G3 processors.
Motorola
Motorola clones are generally based on the Tanzania motherboard, sharing traits
with the Power Macintosh 4400 computer. Motorola’s marketing strategy focused
on selling Macs into the corporate sector, both for creative and regular business
tasks. Motorola machines are generally not daughtercard-upgradeable, and the
models that Motorola mass produced were rarely performance leaders. Motorola
did have a CHRP-compatible Mac OS machine that was introduced shortly before
Apple refused to upgrade Motorola’s clone license to include Mac OS 8.0. The
Motorola CHRP system would have used G3 technology well before Apple’s own
offerings, making it one of the faster desktop computers available in late 1997.
Motorola’s shipping models featured straightforward names; they were all called
StarMax, and numbers were used to suggest the power levels associated with the
machines. In the case of the 3000 and 4000 series machines, both series were
available in desktop and minitower cases — the numbers don’t suggest physical
form, just processor type and market placement. Table 5-2 shows the Motorola
models.
Whaf s CHRP?
The Common Hardware Reference Platform, or CHRP, was a specification hacked out by
Motorola, IBM, Apple, and other companies to enable Mac OS computers to incorporate
traditionally Intel-compatible hardware, including PS/2-style ports and PC-style serial and
parallel ports. The big news was the clone vendors would have been able to run the Mac
OS on PowerPC-based hardware that didn't require special Mac OS ROM chips for opera-
tion, meaning they wouldn't have had to rely on Apple for hardware parts in their clone
machines.
Unfortunately (at least, for consumers), Apple has shied away from the CHRP platform and
shut down most Mac OS doners. Apple's high-end operating system, currently known by Its
code name. Rhapsody, promises to run on a variety of hardware platforms. Including both
PowerPC and Intel-compatible machines. At the same time, Apple has begun incorporating
more Intel-compatible ports and specifications (such as PCI slots and USB ports), giving
Macs access to a much greater variety of computer peripherals and add-ons.
108 Part I ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Table 5-2
Motorola StarMax Product Numbers and Features
Product Number
Megahertz
Features
Levels
StarMax 3000 series
180, 200, 240
Desktop or minitower, based on PowerPC 603e
StarMax 4000 series
160, 200
Desktop or minitower, based on PowerPC 604e
StarMax 5000 series
300
Minitower, based on PowerPC 603e
Motorola appended the letter S to the end of a product name (for example, StarMax
3000/180/S) to suggest it came bundled with the SOHO package, which included
software and hardware appropriate for a home office. The letter E was used in the
same way to suggest an Enterprise package bundle.
UMAX
Emerging from the Mac licensing wars of 1997 relatively unscathed, UMAX was the
last Mac OS clone maker, having decided to slowly work it’s way out of the Mac OS
clone business throughout 1998. You may still be able to find new UMAX systems to
purchase, especially as direct-mail catalog vendors deplete their inventories.
UMAX systems seem to be aimed directly at Apple’s main markets — consumers,
creative professionals, and small enterprise settings. UMAX Mac OS desktop
systems are actually sold under the familiar SuperMac brand, which was originally
a different company name and brand of Apple Macintosh-compatible peripherals
(along with some software, like the first color paint program for Macintosh). The
models are differentiated using single alphabetic letters, followed by numbers that
don’t quite seem to represent anything. Table 5-3 shows the UMAX models.
Table 5-3
SuperMac Mac OS Compatible Models and Features
Product
Megahertz Levels
Features
C500 series
140, 160, 200, 240
Desktop case, based on PowerPC 603e, CPU
upgradeable
C600 series
180, 200, 240, 280
minitower case, based on PowerPC 603e, CPU
upgradeable
J700 series
150, 180, 233
desktop case, based on PowerPC 604e, CPU
upgradeable
S900 series
150, 180, 200, 233,
250, 250DP
Tower case, based on PowerPC 604e, CPU
upgradeable
Chapter 5 ♦ inside Your Mac 1 09
UMAX uses a number of different letter codes to represent various things in the
model name (for example, C500i/200). An / usually means Internet (that is, the
model includes a modem), an e is for enterprise (the model includes Ethernet), vPC
means the model includes Virtual PC software, and DP means dual processing (the
model includes two PowerPC processors that can be used simultaneously by some
programs and operating systems, such as the BeOS, if they support that particular
model).
Web -^ The BeOS is an alternative operating system designed to run on many PowerPC-
■ : based Macintosh models. Check out www . be . com on the Web for more information.
Is your Mac PowerPC-based?
This is probably the first thing you'll want to know about your Mac once you’ve
learned the model name and number. In some ways, it’s vital to know whether your
Mac uses a PowerPC processor, because that fact can determine quite a bit about
how to troubleshoot and speed up your Mac.
How can you tell? With Apple products it’s easy — every Mac that was originally
sold with a PowerPC processor (not including special aftermarket upgrades) has a
four-digit model number, except those that include information about the chip right
in the name (like the Power Macintosh G3 — a dead giveaway). Performa, LC,
PowerBook, and any other models that feature four digits (in other words, the
PowerBook 5300, the Performa 6400) are PowerPC-based.
Also, all major Mac OS clones are PowerPC-based, because Mac OS licensing didn’t
begin until after Apple had transitioned completely to PowerPC processors. The
last new Macintosh computer made to support the 68040 processor was the
PowerBook 190, introduced in 1995. It is now a discontinued product, as are all non-
PowerPC Macs.
What type of expansion bus does your Mac use?
Part of getting to know the model and specifications of your Mac includes
determining what sort of expansion bus — NuBus, PDS or PCI — the Mac uses. This
is of vital importance if you plan to upgrade using internal expansion cards. In
nearly all cases, a Mac designed for a certain expansion technology is incapable
of using cards designed for another expansion technology. (There are add-on
adapters for some special cases.)
If your Mac is a second-generation Apple Power Macintosh or newer, a second-
generation Power Computing machine or newer, or nearly any other Mac OS
clone, it is probably based on the PCI bus. Older Apple Macs and the first Power
Computing models usually accept NuBus cards, but not always. PDS is the norm
for many Performa, LC, and a few Power Macintosh models.
] ] Q Part I -f Getting Ready to Upgrade
Chapter 4 has a more in-depth explanation of the different bus technologies.
Is your Mac AV capable?
Another capability that varies from Mac to Mac is AV capability. Usually, this means
the Mac’s ability to receive video input (from a VCR, camcorder, or similar device)
and digitize it into a QuickTime movie that can be saved to the Mac’s hard drive.
This enables the user to edit the movie, add effects and titling, and then output the
movie to another video source for taping or compress the video file and transfer it
to other computers for use as a movie or presentation.
To determine if your Mac is AV capable, consult Table 4.2 in Chapter 4, looking for
Video In capabilities listed in the Other Ports column. Also, note that many 68040
and PowerPC-based Performa and LC models include a special video slot that
enables them to be easily upgraded to AV functions.
Oddly enough, even though these Macs are called AV Macs (suggesting that they
have special audio and visual capabilities), the only real differentiator is usually
enhanced video capabilities. Because most Macs have advanced audio built in, this
isn't really a feature special to AV Macs.
r Cross- ^
I Reference
If your Mac isn't an AV-enhanced model, it can probably still be upgraded to AV capa-
bility. Check Chapter 13 for more on the subject.
Your Mac's hard disk technology
Yet another important fact to know is the hard disk technology used by your
particular Mac model. Once you know the name and model number of your Mac,
use it to determine the type of hard disk technology options you have for upgrading
your Mac. (See Table 7-1 in Chapter 7.) There are basically two types to concern
yourself with: IDE and SCSI.
SCSI is the faster and more capable of the two, whereas IDE is a bit less expensive
and the Intel-compatible standard, making IDE drives more readily available. Most
Macs offer SCSI technology for upgrading, although many newer Macs come with
internal IDE drives. Even these Macs, as a rule, offer external SCSI upgrading for
adding external hard drives and other SCSI peripherals.
Opening Your Mac's Case
Macintosh computer cases have been many and varied over the years. As Apple’s
philosophy regarding user upgrades of Mac systems has changed (the company
now thinks it’s an okay, if not a great, idea for consumers to upgrade their Macs), so
has the ease-of-entry for cases. With some exceptions, corporate and professionally
aimed Macs have been pretty easy to open and upgrade — especially the bread-and-
butter Mac II, Quadra, and Power Macintosh series computers. Original Macs can
chapter 5 > Inside Your Mac 111
be very tough, LCs vary somewhat, and Performas can range from simple to
downright scary, depending on the configuration.
Mac OS clone machines tend to vary less, although they also don’t usually use very
creative cases. Borrowing from the lower-cost case designs in the Intel-compatible
world, clone vendors such as Power Computing, Motorola, and UMAX have
generally opted for simple case designs, in either desktop or tower configurations,
that are taken apart by removing a few screws and lifting the case off the
computer’s chassis. With these cases, your best bet is to consult the manual that
came with your Mac OS clone computer to learn exactly how you open it. Once
opened, it’ll look a lot like some Apple Macintosh models.
Opening any computer's case
Before looking at the specifics, it’s important to first discuss some universal rules
for opening any computer’s case. In general, these rules are designed to keep both
the computer systems and the humans involved out of harm’s way.
Whenever you prepare to open your Mac’s case, follow these guidelines:
4“ Create a good workspace with room on a flat tabletop. Mac cases and
equipment can be sharp-edged, so protect the table from damage. Don’t use
conductive materials like fabric, plastic, or metal under the systems —
nonconductive rubber mats or wood surfaces are best.
4 Keep food and drink away from open Mac systems, and try to avoid the
possibility of spills on or in your Mac.
-f Electrically ground yourself when upgrading any computer components. A
wrist or ankle grounding strap is the best alternative.
4 Avoid static electricity at all costs — it can kill computer components. Try not
to upgrade in a carpeted room. When upgrading, touch a shielded computer
power supply (or other metal surface) to discharge static often, and don’t
wear clothing that promotes static electricity.
^ When handling computer components, avoid touching the metal contacts or
other parts of a circuit board. Handle boards and drives by their edges and
corners as much as possible.
Use the right tools. Make sure you do your best not to strip the screws used
to hold your Mac together. Use hand tools to tighten and loosen screws on
your Mac’s case. Don’t use power tools, so as to avoid stripping and
overtightening. You should also avoid magnetized tools for working inside a
computer.
> Handle circuit boards with care. Avoid dragging objects across the surface of
the logic board or other circuit boards.
4- Hang onto screws, wires, and connectors. Keep containers on hand for
holding small parts so they don’t get lost.
112 ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
^ Label everything. If you remove or unplug any components, be ready with
labels and/or masking tape and a pen to label wires or connectors. Also, when
possible, label the direction in which a connector should be reattached.
Open your Apple Madntosh case
Apple cases have gone through many, many iterations, and all the various nuances
can’t quite be covered here. I will try to hit the most popular models, including
some of the original Macs that were never specifically designed for upgrading.
If you have your original manuals, they may be of some help. You’ll find that some
Mac models make it difficult for you to get to the RAM sockets or cache RAM slots
for upgrading, even once you have the case off. (The Power Macintosh 8100 is a
wonderful example of a very tough upgrade, requiring you to pull all the cables
connecting the logic board to the rest of the Mac to do something simple, like
upgrading RAM.)
Note
Instructions for upgrading an iMac model Macintosh were not available at the time of
writing, although early indications are that these Macs can be upgraded using meth-
ods similar to those for upgrading other Mac all-in-one designs, due to a slide-out
logic board on the back of the machine. Check your iMac's documentation for details.
Can I use my Mac while the case is off?
You can definitely start up and test your Mac with the case off, as long as you take care to
avoid touching any internal components while power is streaming through the system.
Shut down your Mac and take proper precautions before touching or installing anything
internally.
That said, you definitely should not run your Mac with the case off all the time. Apple or the
clone manufacturer designed that case with the flow of air over components in mind. That's
why the power supply has a fan and the Mac case has a little opening with grilles. Leaving
the case off disrupts the flow of air and — regardless of the room's temperature -can actu-
ally cause the Mac to overheat.
Your Mac is designed to run with the case on, so put it back on and leave it properly
installed once your upgrading session is finished.
Chapter 5 4 - Inside Your Mac 113
Caution
Mac Classic form factor
These are the original all-in-one Macs, including the Mac SE, Mac SE/30, Mac
Classic, Mac Classic II, and the Performa 400. These models require a T-15 Torx
screwdriver to open them. IPs recommended that you wear a grounding strap when
working with these Macs.
The CRT connections inside a pre-Mac SE model (Mac Plus, Mac 512k, Mac 128k)
can be very dangerous. I don't recommend upgrading these machines on your own —
instead, have a qualified technician look at them for you. In the case of a Mac SE or
newer, you should wait 30 seconds after powering down the Mac before attempting
the open the case, which gives the Mac enough time to discharge electricity that's
built up in the CRT. Even this is sometimes not enough, though. Professionals dissi-
pate this charge with a grounding tool, as shown in Figure 5-4. Without this, the Mac
could potentially hold a charge for months that could hurt or (possibly) kill you.
Again, I don't recommend upgrading these machines yourself. If you do, either prop-
erly discharge the CRT or avoid touching it at all costs.
Figure 5-4: You should always wait at least 30 seconds after
powering down a Mac before attempting to open the case.
Professionals dissipate the charge with a grounding tool.
114 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Here’s how to open a Classic form-factor Mac:
1. Place the Mac screen-clown on your workbench.
2. Loosen the Torx screws on the back of the Mac (you’ll find two of them up
under the Mac’s handle).
3. Remove the pUistic reset switch (on the right side) of the Mac. It lifts straight
out of the air vents (you may need to pry it up a bit).
4. Using a case spreader (there’s a special Mac “cracker” tool you may be able to
get from Mac shops) or a flat wall scraper/putty knife, gently pry the front
plastic away from the back of the case, as shown in Figure 5-5.
Figure 5-5: Carefully pull the front plastic from the rest of the
case to avoid scratches and cracks.
5. Remove the foil base from the Mac (depending on the model).
You now have the logic board exposed. To install more RAM or otherwise upgrade,
follow instructions in later chapters specific to your desired upgrade.
Color Classic, Color Classic II
The Color Classic offers more expandability than the original Classic series,
enabling you to easily pop open the back and pull out the logic board for adding
RAM or an expansion card.
Chapter 5 ^ Inside Your Mac 115
To open the Color Classic, follow these steps:
1. Unplug any wires attached to ports on the back panel.
2. Remove the two retaining screws on either side of the back panel.
3. Push down and pull on the tabs (see Figure 5-6).
Figure 5-6: The Color Classic's rear panel swings off for easy access
to the logic board.
4. The rear panel should pop open, giving you access to a small handle for the
logic board. Pull that handle straight outward to upgrade components (like
RAM) located on the logic board.
Mac il, llx, llfx
The larger form factor Mac II series boasts 6 NuBus slots for expansion, so the case
needs to be fairly easy to get into — and it is.
To open one of these Mac 11 series machines, follow these steps:
1. Remove the retaining screw, which holds the top of the case and the rear
panel together.
2. Press in on the tabs located on their side of the rear panel, near the top of
the case.
3. While pressing, lift up on the top of the case, as shown in Figure 5-7. It should
lift completely off.
116 ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 5-7: The top of the Mac li chassis lifts completely off,
affording plenty of room for expansion.
Mac Ilex, llci. Quadra 700
The slightly more compact Ilex, llci, and Quadra 700 are also fairly easy to get
into for upgrading purposes. Although these cases are designed to include a
retaining screw, the case will stay together without it, so you may find yours no
longer has one.
Here’s how to get it open:
1. Remove the retaining screw (if there is one). It’s located in the center of the
rear panel, near the top of the case.
2. Pull up simultaneously on the two tabs on either side of the retaining screw
(see Figure 5-8).
3. Lift the top of the case up and off of the rest of the chassis.
Mac ilsi
A machine all to its own, the Mac Ilsi is also a bit tougher to get into than some of its
II series siblings. The thought is the same, but the case itself takes a bit more brawn.
To open the Mac Ilsi, follow these steps:
1. Remove the retaining screw (if there is one). The screw is near the top of the
rear panel, just to the left of the air-vent grille.
Chapter 5 > Inside Your Mac 117
2. Snap up each of the tabs holding the top of the case to the rear panel. To do
this most effectively, place your thumb on the small plastic ledge near the tab,
and then use your forefinger to lift the tab with a slight twisting motion (see
Figure 5-9).
Figure 5-8: This more compact Mac II (and early Quadra) is also
designed for easy upgrading.
Figure 5-9: Releasing one of the tabs on the Mac llsi (You can
use both hands to release both tabs at the same time.)
118 I Getting Ready to Upgrade
LC, LC II, LC III, Quadra 605, Performa 400 series
These low-slung, pizza-box-style Macs still manage to offer a few reasons to get
inside of them. Doing so is similar to the Mac 11 series, but you’ll need to put a little
elbow grease into it:
1. Remove the retaining screw in the top center of the rear panel of the case.
2. Snap the tabs on the case top up from the rear panel. Note that this is easiest
to do if you place your arm on top of the case and pull back to release the
tabs (as shown in Figure 5-10).
Figure 5-10: Getting into an LCs case is a little like popping the top
on a can of soda.
Mac llvx, livi, Centris 650, Quadra 650, Performa 600, Power Macintosh
7100, Workgroup Server(WGS) 70, WGS 7150
One of the more popular cases with Apple’s manufacturing folks (and one of the
more enduring case designs), this form factor is also somewhat unpopular with
upgrading experts. I’ve been told by Mac upgrading experts that this case is the
worst of them all.
Actually, the case itself is quite easy to open. The problem is the case doesn’t often
give you much access to the logic board in these Macs, which is often obscured by
the hard drive and CD-ROM drive, if one is installed. That means you have to
remove them to get to the logic board. For more on the exciting upgrading tasks
that await the owner of one of these machines, consult your user’s guide.
Chapter 5 -f Inside Your Mac 119
To open the case, follow these steps:
1. Remove the large retaining screw located in the top center of the Mac’s back
panel.
2. Slide the case slightly forward, as shown in Figure 5-11.
Figure 5-1 1 : Unlike earlier Macs, this case needs to be slid forward
a bit before if s lifted off the chassis.
3. Now, lift the case directly up cind off the Mac’s chassis.
Centris 610/660AV, Quadra 610/660AV, Power Macintosh 6100,
Performa 6110 series, WGS 60
The Other Mac pizza boxes (Mac folks in general can’t seem to decide which series
more rightly deserves the name, although this second series corresponds more to
the shape of the large, deejxlish pizza favored by tech types) offer fairly easy
access. And, once you get the case off, the upgrade slots and sockets could be
more convenient in these machines.
To open these Macs, follow these steps:
1. Release the tabs that hold the case’s top to the back panel of the Mac. You
may find it easier to release these tabs by placing your arm on the lid while
you pull up on the tabs (see Figure 5-12).
120 Part I ^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 5-12: These tabs can take a little muscle to release the first
few times.
2. Lift the case’s top slightly, and then slide the case forward a bit to move it
away from the undercarriage of the case and allow it to clear the front panel of
the Mac’s chassis.
3. Grab the top of the case from both the back and the front and lift it
completely off the Mac’s chassis.
Quadra/Centris 630, Performa 630, 6200, 6300 series
This was also a popular form factor, especially for Performa series Macs that could
be upgraded with a TV tuner card. The case itself is designed for easy upgrading
(Per forma-style), enabling you to pull the logic board out of the machine without
removing the entire case.
To pull the logic board for upgrading:
1. Locate the two tabs on the back panel of the Mac and push them down until
they release from the case.
2. Pull the tabs until the small panel covering the Mac’s ports comes apart from
the rest of the back panel (see Figure 5-13).
3. Remove the retaining screws that hold the logic board in place. (There are
generally two, located at the top left and right corners of the metallic surface.)
4. Grab the small metal handle (you may have to press down on it a bit to unlock
it from its casing) and pull straight out of the machine. The logic board should
slide out easily, as shown in Figure 5-14.
Chapter 5 ♦ Inside Your Mac 121
Figure 5-13: This small panel swings away, enabling you to get at
the logic board.
Figure 5-14: Slide-out logic boards on this and similar Mac designs
makes it really simple to add RAM and other board-level components.
122 Part I 4^ Getting Ready to Upgrade
Of course, this process only really helps you get to the logic board of your Mac.
What if you want to get at the internal hard drive or other components? First, be
warned — this isn’t nearly as easy, and you need to be careful to avoid bending or
breaking the plastic housing on your Mac.
Note
If you do break the housing on your Mac, run down to your local Mac repair shop and
ask them if you can buy another housing. You don't want to run your Mac for long
without it because it can affect airflow, resulting in an overheated Mac and/or com-
ponents.
Here’s what you do:
1. Locate the two tabs under the front panel of the Mac. They should look
something like those shown in Figure 5-15.
2. Using a screwdriver, gently lift one of the tabs up into the front panel while
pulling the panel away from the Mac’s chassis slightly. (This is a delicate
operation, but once it works the front panel should move toward you a half-
inch or so.)
Figure 5-15: Use the screwdriver to press up on the tab slightly so
it can release from the Mac's chassis.
3. Do the same with the other tab. Once both are released, the front panel
should come easily away from the Mac’s chassis, exposing the internal drives.
Chapter 5 -f inside Your Mac 123
Who needs access to a Performa's internal drive,
anyway?
I was close to a deadline on an important project a while back when the power supply on
our Performa 6215 went down for the count Unable to get it up and running without a ser-
vice call, I was helpless to recover the data on that Performa's hard drive. Unless . . .
I rolled into a major computer chain store, got lucky with a floor model, and walked out
only a few pounds lighter in the wallet, but with a brand new (at the time) Performa 6400
minitower. Because both machines use internal IDE drives, we swapped the drives in the
two Performas and booted the 6400 using the 621 5's drive. The work was done on time,
the Performa 6215 was fixed, and both machines are now used daily— although their hard
drive transplant has never been reversed.
By the way, I speak from experience about breaking this front panel. I broke the panel on
the Performa 6215 while performing this drive swap. Fortunately, the machine had to be
serviced anyway and the local shop gave me a new front panel for a nominal fee.
Quadra 800, Quadra 840AV, WGS 80, Power Macintosh 8100, WGS 8150
The first real tower case (with apologies to the Quadra 700) from Apple is
somewhat less upgrade-friendly than you might imagine, with thumbscrews
replacing the quick-release tabs that other Mac models tend to sport. Still, it’s
certainly not that tough:
1. Unscrew the four thumbscrews on the back panel of the Mac.
2. Slide the case forward a few inches to pull it away from the screws in back
and from the drive opening in front.
3. Tilt the back of the case’s lid up a bit, and then lift the case’s lid completely off
the Mac’s chassis, as shown in Figure 5-16.
Quadra 900/950, WGS 90, Power Macintosh 9500, WGS 9150
On these huge server-oriented Macs, the entire side panel will come off for your
upgrading pleasure. Most feel these are pretty nice enclosures to work in — not as
easy as the newer minitowers, but not as small either. These six-slot machines can
take a lot of upgrading for server duties, digital video, and other important tasks.
124 Part I 'f Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 5-16: Thumbscrews aren't common to most Mac models,
but they don't make it too tough to get into the Apple's first real
minitower enclosure.
To open one of them, follow these steps;
1. Remove the retaining screw, if you can find one (the slot for it is to the left of
the large cooling grille on the back panel, but there’s rarely an actual screw
there).
2. Push in the small tabs at the top and bottom of the side panel where it meets
the back panel.
3. Slide the side panel away from the back panel (as shown in Figure 5-17), and
then remove it completely.
Performa 6400, Power Macintosh 6500
These Macs, in the Performa tradition, feature pull-out logic boards that make it
fairly simple to add RAM and upgrade cards. But what about hard drives and the
like? To work with those, you’ll need to remove the front facing.
To pull the logic board, follow these steps:
1. Remove the retaining screws found next to the two tabs on the back panel of
the Mac.
2. Grasp the tabs and pull directly back away from the Mac (see Figure 5-18).
chapter 5 4- Inside Your Mac 125
Figure 5-17: Although the case was left upright for this image, feel
free to put your Mac on its side for easier upgrading.
Figure 5-18: The logic board on these Macs is simple to access.
126 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
To remove the front panel on these Macs, follow these steps:
1. Grab the front panel from below and feel for the two buttons up underneath
the panel.
2. Push those buttons in as far as possible while simultaneously pulling the
panel away from the bottom of the case (see Figure 5-19).
3. Once it’s free of the buttons on the bottom, remove the panel completely.
Figure 5-19: Don’t be shocked if this makes a little noise — it’s tough
to do the first few times.
You’ll find that it’s easy to upgrade the logic board on many of the relatively simple-
to-upgrade Performa and all-in-one models, but a real bear to upgrade internal drives
and such. If you’re intimidated by the process, feel free to simply pass on opening the
case and install external SCSI hard drives instead. If you do mess up the plastic on
your Mac, though, don’t worry about it too much. A local Mac service center should
be able to sell you the front panel for popular models at a reasonable price.
LC and Performa 520, 550, 575, 580, MacTV
In the spirit of the original Mac, these 68040-based (MacTV has a 68030) all-in-one
units were popular choices for schools and homes that wanted machines that were
easy to work with and somewhat less cumbersome than typical units. They also
turned out to be machines that are a bit less upgradeable than others, although
access to the logic board is generally simple.
To access the logic board in an all-in-one Mac, follow these steps:
Chapter 5 -f Inside Your Mac 127
1. Remove the retaining screws that hold the back plate to the back panel of the
Mac. (Remove any cables that are plugged into the ports on the back of the
Mac, too.)
2. Press down on the tabs at the top of the back plate and pull, as shown in
Figure 5-20.
Figure 5-20: The all-in-one Macs offer quick access to the logic board.
3. Grab the exposed metal handle and pull straight back to reveal the logic
board.
Performa and Power Macintosh 5200/5300 series
These PowerPC versions of the all-in-one Macintosh are a little larger, a bit more
capable, and usually feature larger screens than their predecessors. They’re only
about as expandable, however, offering similar logic-board access.
Here’s how to get at the logic board:
1. Remove the two retaining screws on the back plate that hold it to the Mac’s
back panel.
2. Reach under the back plate, locate the tabs, and press down to release them.
3. Lift the plate up and off the back panel, as shown in Figure 5-21.
4. Grab the exposed metal handle and pull straight back to reveal the logic
board.
128 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
Figure 5-21: Unlike most all-in-one models, the back plate for this
series is latched at the bottom.
Power Macintosh 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600, G3 Desktop, WGS 7250/7350
Another popular case design, these Macs aren’t the most pleasant to get into, but
they’re very much easier to work inside of than are the similar cases they replace —
the long-lived llvx to Power Mac 7100 desktop case. This one releases without
screws, but watch out for the metal retaining braces that like to jump off the drives
in the front of the case.
To open this case, follow these steps:
1. Reach up under the front panel and locate the tabs.
2. Push the tabs up while simultaneously sliding the case toward you, as shown
In Figure 5-22.
3. Slide the case completely off the machine (if desired) to gain access to the
internal drives and logic board.
It’s interesting to note that you can actually flip this case completely open by
swinging the drive cage up and away from the logic board (see Figure 5-23). The
instructions that follow show how to open it up.
chapter 5 > Inside Your Mac 129
Figure 5-22: Pull slowly on the case to get it to slide smoothly away
from the front-mounted internal drives.
Figure 5-23: One of Apple's more interesting cases, the 7300
(and similar) series enables easy access to the logic board.
130 Part I 4 Getting Ready to Upgrade
1. Unplug the Mac — it can’t be swung open if it’s plugged in.
2. Releasing the foot that helps the drive cage to stand. The foot looks like a
small, square box that might be designed for holding screws or thumbtacks or
something. Swing it around so that it’s settled outside of the case. Once you
swing up the drive cage, the foot will rest on the table surface, enabling you to
leave the logic board exposed without being forced to hold the drive cage up.
3. Find the releases on the other side of the drive cage. These are green, plastic
tabs that, when pushed down, release the drive cage from its lockdowns in
the sides of the case.
4. Grab the cage’s handle and swing it away from the logic board.
Power Macintosh 8600, 9600, and G3 Minitower
This minitower case is as innovative as the Power Macintosh 7300 series case; it
also allows you to swing components out of the way to get at the logic board. If
there’s any competition at all for the top spot, this minitower case wins out by a
hair for its simplicity.
Here’s how to open this case:
1. Place the case on its side. The side housing the large green button should be
on top. Unplug the Mac.
2. Press the green button down into the case while pulling that side of the Mac
away from the rest of the case.
3. Pull the side completely off the case by carefully opening it completely until it
comes free.
4. To expose the logic board, release the two tabs that anchor the drive cage to
the rest of the case.
5. Swing the drive cage up and away from the logic board. (Figure 5-24 shows
how to swing these drive cages out of their cases.)
The Innards Revealed
Once you have your Mac opened up and exposed to the world, you’ll probably want
to take a look around and familiarize yourself with things. Not everything in here is
replaceable or repairable, but a lot of it is. And if your primary motivation is
upgrading, you’ll definitely want to explore some parts of the Mac.
chapter 5 Inside Your Mac 131
Figure 5-24: One of Apple's most innovative cases, the 8600 is
easy to get apart.
For some, the innards of a computer may seem like a strange world, but it’s really
rather tame. You have components that need to be connected to the Mac (so it can
manage them), you have expansion cards that need to be connected to the logic
board, and you have wiring that does the connecting. Taken separately, they all
make a lot of sense.
Components
To begin, let’s look at the different components you may encounter when upgrading
a Mac. The Power Mac 6100 isn’t representative of all Macs, but it’s a great place to
get started, because it’s very open and easy to view. Take a look at Figure 5-25,
which shows the Power Mac 6100 with its case off.
For the most part, these are the components you’ll be working with when
upgrading: the hard drive, floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, RAM sockets, cache RAM
sockets, the PRAM battery, and upgrade slots. You’ll also want to know where the
power supply, SCSI controller, and CPU are, because you may have reason to use
them in conjunction with other upgrades to accomplish your goals.
132 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
Floppy drive
CD-ROM drive
Hard drive
CPU
Cache RAM
socket
Upgrade slot
SIMM sockets SCSI Controller PRAM Battery
Figure 5-25: Some of the elements you'll typically find when you open a
Mac's case.
Here’s a quick rundown on identifying each:
4 Power supply. The power supply is always a metallic box set into the case of
the Mac you’re working with. It should have power connectors for a three-
prong power cable coming out the back of the Mac, with smaller power
connectors (usually four colored wires and a connector) coming into the case
for connecting to internal components.
4 Hard drive. An enclosed metal box with no openings, connected to the Mac
by a power connector and a SCSI (or IDE) ribbon cable.
4 CD-ROM drive. Similar to the hard drive, but has an opening on the front
(exposed through the front of the Mac’s case) for the CD tray or caddy.
4 Floppy drive. Similar to a hard drive and a CD-ROM drive, but with an opening
for a 3.5-inch floppy disk in the front.
4 SCSI controller. Usually on either the motherboard or an expansion card, the
SCSI controller offers a 50-pin connector for attaching a ribbon cable that then
is used to connect SCSI internal drives.
Some Macintosh systems (including many Performa models, the Power Macintosh
4400, 6500, and many Power Macintosh G3 systems) offer IDE hard drives instead of
SCSI. Most of these Macs still offer external SCSI connections, and those that include
free internal expansion bays often offer an internal SCSI connection as well.
Chapter 5 ♦ Inside Your Mac 133
> Memory sockets. Memory sockets accept 36-, 72-, or 128-pin modules,
depending on your Mac model. Almost all Mac models offer at least two of
these sockets, generally located right next to one another.
4 Cache RAM. Level 2 cache RAM is usually added to a Mac using either a
special memory module or an expansion card (especially on older models).
This generally adds 256K to 2MB of high-speed RAM that can be used as a
repository for frequently needed information, enabling the processor to avoid
waiting to retrieve this data from the hard drive.
^ Upgrade slot. Most Macs have at least one upgrade slot, whereas others offer
more than one. These allow cards in standard sizes, usually between 6 and 12
inches long, to be installed in the Mac, adding functionality. The cards must
be of the same type as the available slot — PDS cards fit in PDS slots, NuBus
cards fit in NuBus slots, and PCI cards fit in PCI slots. (Some Macs offer
other specialized slots.) Upgrade slots are generally found directly on the
motherboard and usually offer access to the back side of the Mac (see
Figure 5-26).
Figure 5-26: Upgrade slots in a Performa 6200 series Mac include
a special communications slot and room for a Performa-specific
video input card.
-f CPU. The CPU is a fairly sizable chip on the motherboard or an attached
daughtercard. In newer Mac models, it’s usually obscured by a heat sink, a
special device that dissipates heat quickly while the computer is running. The
CPU should be labeled clearly as either a 680x0-level processor or as a
particular PowerPC processor.
134 Part 1 Getting Ready to Upgrade
4 PRAM battery. This small lithium-ion battery sometimes looks like a battery
for a wristwatch or camera, and other times looks like a slightly warped C
battery. This battery offers a continuous trickle of power to your Mac’s
Parameter RAM (PRAM), where boot-up settings such as the system date,
AppleTalk preferences, and screen resolution are all stored. If this battery
fails, you’ll experience interesting symptoms, most of which are outlined in
Chapter 22.
Wiring and cables
In most Macs, you’ll find three different types of wire. The power wires run between
the Mac’s power supply and any internal components that require power. The
second type of wires are ribbon cables, which are used to connect components —
like hard, floppy and CD-ROM drives — to the logic board or an input/output
expansion card. The third internal wire is a thin, low gauge wire used to connect
the logic board to indicator lights and switches that are wired into the case. These
wires can also be used for things like connecting the Mac’s sound capabilities to a
CD-ROM drive. Figure 5-27 shows these different wires and cables.
Externally, you’ll probably find yourself dealing with a few different styles of cables.
These cables are usually used to connect external components to your Mac —
components like removable storage drives, modems and network connections.
Figure 5-28 is a quick identification guide to some of the cabling you’ll come across.
> SCSI cable. Used to connect external storage devices (and some others, like
scanners) to your Mac. Usually has a 25-pin connection to the Mac and 25 or
50-pin connection to peripherals.
4- Modem/serial cable. Standard Mac cables have small, round DIN-8
connectors for connecting to the Mac and to peripherals.
> Ethernet. Ethernet cabling actually comes in two different types: 10Base2
(coax) cable, which resembles the cabling used for cable TV hookups, and
lOBaseT (twisted-pair) cable, which looks a little like telephone wire. lOBaseT
cabling uses a different connector than telephone wire, and the cable itself is
slightly thicker.
♦ Audio. Most Mac audio patch cables (between speakers and the Mac or the
Mac and a receiver) use Vk-inch stereo RCA connectors. Macs require specially
built line-level microphones, some of which are sold under the Apple brand.
4 ADB. ADB cables are used to connect a variety of input/output devices —
keyboards, trackballs, mice — to the Mac. The ADB is also a source of power
for some other devices, like modems and telephony managers.
4 Mac video. This cable ends in a 15-pin connector, which can be used to hook
an Apple monitor to a Macintosh computer. Many non-Apple monitors require
a VGA adapter, which allows the monitor to sync with the Apple built-in video.
Some video cards include both Mac video and VGA ports on the card.
chapter 5 > Inside Your Mac 135
Figure 5-27: The three different
types of internal wiring: (from the top)
ribbon cable, power cable, device wiring
Figure 5-28: Cables used to
connect components to the
back of your Mac for external upgrades
C
Modem/Serial
ADB
c=
i=°°
1 =®
11
Audio
Mac video
136 Part I 4- Getting Ready to Upgrade
Expansion cards
Chapter 4 discusses the different technologies that a Mac might use for its
expansion card capabilities. Once you get your Mac open, you may want to see for
yourself what expansion cards look like and how you go about installing them.
what expansion cards look like
In Figure 5-25 you can see the PDS slot for the Power Macintosh 6100. Figure 5-29
shows the PCI slots available in a Power Macintosh 7300.
Figure 5-29: PCI slots are actual slots instead of socket-style
connectors, which are used in NuBus.
Some basic differences include:
4 NuBus. Connectors are usually gray in appearance and are actually sockets
that accept pins from the card. The card’s connector housing fits over the
connector on the logic board. The number of NuBus slots varies between one
and six, depending on the Mac model.
4 PDS. Connectors are usually black in appearance and are actual slots,
accepting a flat circuit-board connector that slips into the slot from the card.
All Macs with PDS slots have only one PDS slot.
4 PCI. Similar to PDS slots in appearance, but usually white in color. Most PCI-
based Macs have either three or six slots, although some Mac models have
one specialized PCI slot that can only accept certain types of upgrade cards
(such as the PCI communications slot on Performa 6200/6300 models).
Chapter 5 -f Inside Your Mac 137
Installing expansion cards
Installing an expansion card is usually a straightforward process, and it tends to
work the same for any sort of board. Give yourself a little time for adding an
expansion board — at least 10 or 15 minutes to get the case off and the card
installed for testing. Also, keep track of your screws — there’s a chance you’ll be
dealing with at least a few when you install a new card.
Here’s how it all works:
1. Shut down your Mac and electrically ground yourself.
2. Open the Mac’s case and locate an empty expansion slot. (Visually inspect it
to ensure it’s the right type of slot for your card.)
3. Remove the screw and metal dust plate that covers the hole in back of the
case for the slot you’ll be using.
4. Position the card so that the card’s interface is directly over the slot. If it’s a
NuBus card, make sure the card’s housing fits over the NuBus slot on the logic
board. If it’s a PDS or a PCI card, make sure the card’s connector fits snugly in
the slot.
5. Press down lightly and uniformly on the top corners of the expansion card
until it’s firmly installed in the slot.
Be sure that the card is fully installed in the slot. If one end is higher than the other,
parts of the connector may not be making proper contact, and the card will fail to
work.
6. Try restarting your Mac while the case is still off and see if the card is
recognized. If all goes well, the card should be installed and working with no
trouble. (You can use the Apple System Profiler to check.) Shut down the
computer and reinstall the case.
An Internet link to download the Apple System Profiler is available on the included
CD-ROM and is usually installed with Mac OS 7.6 or higher— check your Apple menu
or the Apple Extras folder on your main hard drive.
Serial ports
Your Mac likely has two serial ports — a printer port and a modem port. In some
ways, these ports are the same. They can both accept any sort of serial device and
they can both (on AV Macintosh and Power Macintosh models) accept GeoPort
devices. There is one difference — the printer port is also designed to be a
LocalTalk connection for printer and network connections. The modem port isn’t.
138 Part I 4* Getting Ready to Upgrade
Generally, connecting devices to these ports is simple; you power down your Mac,
align the serial connector so that the arrow (or other logo) is pointing toward the
top of the port, and then insert the connector. If it doesn’t go in easily, you probably
have it slightly misaligned. (If you have a non-Apple Macintosh, you may also find
that the manufacturer had an interesting definition for the word top when it comes
to finding the top of the port. Try rotating the connector 90 degrees or more.)
From there, whatever is connected to the port is managed by its software drivers,
usually in the form of a control panel. You may be asked to tell the control panel
which port the device is connected to — printer or modem. In almost every case,
expanding via a serial port is simple. (See the chapter on the particular device in
question for more help.)
There’s only one problem that you’ll often encounter with working serial ports that
come right out of the box with your Mac — there’s only two of them, the modem
port and the printer port. (And that’s on desktop models — many PowerBooks have
one.) Sometimes, you’ll need more than two of them.
A lot of peripherals can require the use of a serial port, including modems, printers,
some scanners, some small printers, digital cameras, PDA docking devices (for a
PalmPilot or Newton, for instance), or, of course, a LocalTalk network. If you have
more than two of these peripherals — or any others than 1 didn’t mention — you’ll
need some way to switch between them.
Here’s what to do when you need a free serial port:
4 Shuffle. One way to get around this problem is to change the way you’re
hooking things up. For instance, if you have a laser printer that could be
connected via Ethernet, you could disconnect it from the printer port,
connect it via an Ethernet connection, and then use the printer port for
something else.
4 Get a switch box. Manual switch boxes for serial ports are reasonably
inexpensive and generally available in good computer stores (remember to
get the Mac’s Din-8 serial port variety). These boxes feature a manual A-B
switch that enables you to pick between two different serial peripherals at
any one time. There are a few caveats — some printers (many Hewlett-Packard
models come to mind) don’t like to be on a switch box, and you may have
poor connections to some other peripherals, such as digital cameras and PDA
docking devices. Overall they work pretty well though, as long as you
remember to load only the correct driver (don’t tell two control panels that
they can both have the serial port at the same time) and, of course, you need
to remember to switch to the device you want to use.
4 Try powered switching. If the switch box doesn’t work for you, try a powered
switching device instead. These boxes sense which device you’re trying to
use (using their own control panels), and then route the data to that device.
The PortDoubler series from Momentum, Inc. (www.momentumi nc . net/) and
Chapter 5 ♦ Inside Your Mac 139
the Port Xpander offerings from MacAlly (www. macal 1 y . com/) both boast
these capabilities as well as being compatible with more devices than typical
switch boxes.
-f Add more ports. Ready for the big guns? You can actually add more serial
ports using an expansion card, such as the PCI offerings from Keyspan
(WWW. keyspan . com/), which also plans to sell a USB card that will be
available to Macs that don’t yet have USB ports.
Summary
Before you can upgrade or troubleshoot your Mac, it’s a good idea to know
what model you have. This knowledge will go a long way to help you out not
only in your Mac repair shop or parts store, but also with this book. Most
chapters feature a chart that helps you run through the system specifications
for upgrading your particular Mac model.
^ Almost every Mac has a slightly different procedure for opening the case, and
certain rules apply both to specific Mac models and to opening any computer.
^ You need to have certain tools on hand before upgrading. You should also
carefully consider your surroundings and make sure you’re ready to put forth
the time, energy, and organization required to upgrade successfully.
4 Finally, you should know some universals about upgrading Macs, including
the wires you’re going to find inside the system, what cabling to use on the
outside, and how to identify the different types of upgrade cards. Now, at long
last, you’re ready to upgrade.
p
A
R
T
Performing the
Upgrade
P art II includes individual chapters that each discuss
different types of upgrades — what’s possible, what’s
necessary, and how to perform them. Each chapter discusses
a particular upgrading goal or subsystem of the Macintosh —
printing, sound, networking, storage — along with the related
technologies and different possible upgrades. These
chapters tell you what a technology is, how it works, and
even give a little help when it comes to deciding which
upgrade technology is best for you. You’ll also learn about
related software topics — things such as implementing a
backup system, getting on the Internet, and creating a local
area network.
JJ
>
In This Part
Chapter 6
Processor and Memory
Chapter 7
Hard Drives
Chapter 8
CD-ROMs, Recordable
CDs, and DVD
Chapter 9
Removable Drives and
Backup
Chapter 10
Input Devices
Chapter 1 1
Scanners and Digital
Cameras
Chapter 12
Monitors and Monitor
Cards
Chapter 13
Digital Video
Chapter 14
Sound, Speech,
and MIDI
Chapter 15
Printers and Print
Sharing
Chapter 16
Modems and Internet
Access
Chapter 17
Networking
Chapter 18
Multimedia and Gaming
Chapter 19
Dealing with DOS and
V/indows PCs
Chapter 20
PowerBooks
^ ^
Processor and
Memory
I f you’re upgrading to change the speed of your Mac, this
chapter is certainly one of the places to start. The Mac’s
logic board and processor are responsible for most of the
technology that your Mac uses to “think,” or process data.
The logic board includes the system bus (the path for data to
travel around the logic board) and the expansion bus, which
determines what sort of expansion cards you’ll be able to use:
PDS, NuBus, or PCI. The logic board also houses the processor
or processor daughtercard, and is responsible for making sure
the processor and the rest of the Mac communicate well with
one other.
The speed of the processing subsystem in a Macintosh is
based on the coming together of a number of different
variables, including the system bus speed, the processor, the
amount of RAM in the system and the amount of cache RAM
that’s installed. With these four factors covered, you can
considerably speed up the performance of a given Mac.
Of course, that also depends on an important condition —
exactly how upgradeable your particular Mac model is. Some
models are capable of amazing leaps in technology, whereas
others are rather limited in what they can do. In most cases,
Macs can accept more RAM, even if they require the
replacement of existing RAM modules to do it. However, the
various Mac models differ in their capacity to accept new
processors and cache RAM.
This chapter discusses all the processing subsystem upgrades
you can perform on a Macintosh. Read on to find out what all
your particular Mac model is capable of doing and how you
can go about boosting your Mac’s processing speed.
/
^ 4 >
In This Chapter
The processor and
logic board
Chart: Upgrade for
speed
Memory and settings
Chart: Add RAM to
your system
Add cache RAM
4 4 4 4
144 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
The Processor and Logic Board
The processor and logic board in a particular Macintosh model were designed very
specifically to go together. The logic board is the heart of the Mac, responsible for
dealing with everything else that makes up the computer, including the storage
subsystem, video, expansion cards, RAM, cache RAM — even the battery for
Parameter RAM (PRAM) settings.
Parameter RAM is a small section of memory resen/ed for permanent settings on the
Macintosh, most of which are governed by your control panels. These settings have to
be maintained when the Mac is shut down, so a small battery is used to constantly
power the RAM that the settings inhabit.
All these components need to work together with the processor to make the
computer’s processing tasks run smoothly. This, too, is managed by the logic
board.
In fact, the logic board and processor are so intertwined that the two must have a
speed-based relationship for them to work together. The processor’s speed is
measured in megahertz, as first mentioned in Chapter 2. For the processor and the
logic board to work together, the speed of the logic board’s system bus (which gets
data to and from the processor) needs to be in line with the speed of the processor:
Either the speeds must be identical or the processor speed needs to be an exact
multiple of the speed of the logic board. This is one way computer companies
decide what the exact speeds of their processors are going to be.
The speed game
Consider that a processor can be the same speed as the logic board’s system bus.
In pre-Power Macintosh computers, this was almost always the case. A 25MHz
68030, like the Mac Ilci, has a 25MHz system bus.
In later systems, though, it became popular for processors to be clock-multiplied,
meaning they actual run internally at a clock speed that is an exact multiple of the
system bus speed. The first time this really became common was with the 68040
chips in the Quadra and LC series, in which the processors were clock-doubled. In
many cases, that meant they featured a 66MHz processor running on a 33MHz
system bus. In fact, even the Quadra 800 and 650 models, which were advertised as
33MHz systems, were actually clock-doubled so that the internal processor ran at
66MHz.
It's interesting to note that Apple was originally shy about advertising the internal
speed of its processors, even though its competition in the Intel-compatible PC world
was already making a science of it with the 486DX2-66-style naming conventions.
(DX2 suggested a clock-doubled processor.)
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 145
With the advent of the Power Macintosh models, Apple started focusing less on
marketing the bus speed of Macs and more on pushing the processor speeds,
especially as it became common for the processor speeds to reach multiples
beyond double-speed. The 66MHz PowerPC 601 in the Power Macintosh 6100
was still a clock-doubled processor (the system bus ran at 33MHz), but the next
generation of Power Macs started going beyond double — such as the Power
Macintosh 7200/120, which featured a 40MHz bus, meaning the processor was
clock-tripled. The 300MHz PowerPC 750 processor, available in some Power
Macintosh G3 configurations, is actually cheating just slightly; it’s based on a
66MHz bus and 4.5 as a multiplier. Do the math and you get to about 297MHz.
Actually, the 66MHz bus is about 66.6MHz, resulting in a 4.5 multiplier that brings
the Power Macintosh G3 to 299.7MHz. And if you’re not willing to give them that
one, multiply it by a 66.66MHz bus. Now it’s 299.97. Fair enough?
The point is two-fold. First, it’s important to realize that processor speed and
system bus speed are this closely related — especially when you get into upgrading
those Mac models that have upgradeable processors. In many cases, the cards
enable you to choose speeds for the processor and system bus that will affect both
performance and stability. When you’re picking numbers for the system bus, you
may pick something slightly higher than the original rating, which could result in
crashes. Scale that back a bit and you may actually hit a range that will enable you
to use a multiplier that gives you a higher processor speed, even at a lower bus
speed.
For instance, a 66MHz bus setting might work at 231 MHz, but a 60MHz bus setting
might allow you to boost the processor to 240MHz. It may not speed things up
much, but people do this sort of thing anyway for the bragging rights.
Upgradeable processors
This and the previous discussion assume you’re in a position to choose processor
and system bus speeds because you have a Macintosh capable of accepting the
upgrade. This is certainly not true in many cases, although a surprising number of
Mac models truly are upgradeable. Exactly how upgradeable is another issue.
Some general things can be said about processor upgrading. First of all, it’s rare
that you can jump more than one major revision in the technology. For instance,
a lot of Mac II series machines can be upgraded using a PDS card that increases
the processor to the 68040 level, making it capable of running at 50- or 66MHz,
depending on the bus speed of the original Mac II series machine. But a Mac II
series machine — except in isolated incidents — can’t be upgraded to a PowerPC-
based Mac.
146 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Many 68040 machines can be upgraded to Power Macs. Likewise, PowerPC 601-
based machines can be upgraded to PowerPC 604e machines (which is actually a
direct generational leap, because the PowerPC 603e is not the logical successor of
the 601), and PowerPC 604e machines can be upgraded to G3-level PowerPC 750
processors. One of the few exceptions to this rule is the first generation (6100, 7100,
8100) Power Macintosh models, which can be upgraded to G3 processing power
using special PDS cards from Sonnet Technologies and Newer Technologies.
Where else can you get upgrades? See Table 6-1 for a little help. (Note that the Level
of Products category represents the products currently shipping as of this writing.
The companies listed may have shipped products designed for earlier Macs in the
past, but have since stopped selling them new.)
Table 6-1
Processor Upgrade Manufacturers
Company
Level of Products
URL
Apple Computer
PPC
WWW. appl e. com/ products/
Sonnet Technologies
030, 040, PPC, G3
WWW. sonnettech.com/
Newer Technologies
PPC, G3
www.newertech.com/
MacTell
PPC, G3
www.mactell .com/
PowerLogix
PPC, G3
WWW . power 1 ogi x . com/
XLR8
PPC, G3
www.xl r8.com/
Micromac
030, 040, PPC
www.m1cromac.com/
Aside from selling a wide variety of upgrading products, Micromac also offers an
excellent specifications search service on their Web site. Just choose your Mac model
from a menu, and the site will give you all the specifications for the model, including
RAM types and possible upgrades.
Types of upgrades
Before looking at the specific upgrades available for the various Macintosh models,
take a look at the different types of upgrades you’ll encounter when you set out to
augment your system. There are really only four major types of upgrades out there,
although they vary a bit within each type. You’ll likely only have one choice,
although a number of mid-life Macs — those built in the early 1990s — offer a few
choices.
chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 1 4-7
Here are the types of upgrades:
♦ Expansion card. It’s rare-to-never that you’ll see an expansion card upgrade
that’s based on NuBus or PCI, but the processor direct slot (PDS) that was
popular on earlier Mac models has proved to be a big hit with upgrade
manufacturers. From the Color Classic to the Power Macintosh 8100, PDS slots
can almost always be filled with an upgrade that takes your model to the next
level. The only exception to this rule are some PowerPC-based Performa
models that offer PDS slots but never really used them for much of anything.
Unfortunately, those models don’t seem very upgradeable. Figure 6-1 shows a
processor upgrade expansion card.
Figure 6-1 : The Sonnet Presto 040 is a PDS expansion card
for many of the Mac II series computers.
^ Logic board. In this case, the entire logic board needs to be replaced for the
Mac to be upgraded. A logic board upgrade is a tough but not impossible task;
Apple generally recommends that the logic board upgrade be completed by
an authorized service center. Depending on your Mac model (and how much
interest you have in keeping the Mac under warranty and/or functional), you
can probably manage the logic board upgrade yourself. Unfortunately, you’re
unlikely to find logic board upgrades at the retail level, requiring you to shop
the used market and the used/refurbished computer maii-order houses.
Processor. A Mac’s processor is usually either soldered on the motherboard —
meaning it’s affixed by heating metal that then cools to form a seal — or it’s
148 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
socketed, meaning it’s installed in such a way that it could, if necessary, be
removed from its socket. This second sort of processor is interesting, because
it means — if a manufacturer expends enough ingenuity to solve the problem —
you can often add a different processor to make the Mac operate at higher
speeds. This is exactly the approach taken to upgrading many Mac II series
machines to 68040 and some Performa-series machines to PowerPC. It’s also
the approach used to upgrade G3-leveI machines to higher speeds.
Daughtercard. This last type of upgrade is the most common with later
systems. In most Apple and many clone models based on the PowerPC 604e
processor, the CPU is actually mounted on an expansion card complete with
settings, heat sinks, and (sometimes) cache RAM. To upgrade the processor,
all you have to do is pull the existing daughtercard and plug in the new one.
With some daughtercards, it’s even possible to set the speed of the system
bus (within certain parameters dictated by the logic board). Figure 6-2 shows
a CPU daughtercard.
Figure 6-2: This is Apple's 200MHz 604e daughtercard.
Notice the heat sink that covers the processor and other
components.
It’s almost laughably simple to upgrade most Macs when they provide an upgrade
path. Personally, I think most Mac processor upgrades are a joy to perform because
you just open the Mac, install the upgrade, and start computing at incredible new
speeds.
chapter 6 4^ Processor and Memory ] ^9
Still, there are a few caveats, which Til cover after you take a look at the options
available for your particular system.
Individual upgradeability
Time for one of those big tables. Table 6-2 shows you the upgradeability of major
Macintosh models including some of the clones. When a particular Mac is
upgradeable, all the ways in which it can be upgraded are listed in the
Upgradeable? column. 030 stands for 68030, 040 stands for 68040. Note that if a
computer is already a 68030 and the table indicates its upgradeable to a 68030, this
is usually because the upgrade doubles the speed of the processor (or better),
usually via a PDS card.
Table 6-2
Macintosh Processor Upgrades
Mac OS Model
Processor
Speed
Upgradeable?
Upgrade Technology
Mac 128k
68000
8MHz
No
N/A
Mac 512k
68000
8MHz
No
N/A
Classic
68000
8MHz
No
N/A
Classic II
68030
16MHz
No
N/A
Color Classic
68030
16MHz
030, 040
PDS
Color Classic II
68030
33MHz
040
PDS
Plus
68000
8MHz
No
N/A
SE
68000
8MHz
030
PDS
SE/30
68030
16MHz
030
PDS
Mac II
68020
16MHz
030
CPU
Mac llx
68030
16MHz
030
CPU
Ilex
68030
16MHz
040
PDS
lid
68030
25MHz
040
PDS
llsi
68030
20MHz
040
PDS
livi
68030
20MHz
040, PPC 601
PDS, logic board
llvx
68030
32MHz
040, PPC 601
PDS, logic board
llfx
68030
40MHz
N/A
N/A
LC
68020
16MHz
030, 040
CPU, PDS
(continued)
150 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Table 6-2 (continued)
Mac 05 Model
Processor Speed
Upgradeable?
Upgrade Technology
LCII
68030
16MHz
030, 040
CPU, PDS
LC lll/lll
68030
25/33MHZ
040
Logic board (LC475)
LC520
68030
25MHz
040, PPC 601
Logic board, CPU’
LC 550, Performa
550, 560
68030
33MHz
040, PPC 601
Logic board, CPU’
Performa 200
68030
16MHz
No
N/A
Performa 250,
400, 405,
410, 430
68030
16MHz
040
Logic board (LC 475)
Performa 450
68030
25MHz
040
Logic board (LC 475)
Performa 600,
600CD
68030
32MHz
040, PPC 601
PDS, logic board
(7100)
Performa 460,
466, 467
68030
33MHz
N/A
Logic board (LC 475)
Performa 475,
476
68LC040
50MHz
PPC 601
CPU
Performa 520
68030
25MHz
N/A
N/A
Performa 575,
577, 578 LC 575
68LC040
66MHz
PPC 601
CPU
Performa 580,
588, LC 580
68LC040
66MHz
PPC 601
CPU
Mac TV
68030
33MHz
No
N/A
Performa 600/
600CD
68030
33MHz
040, PPC 601
PDS, logic board
Performa 630, 0
630CD, 631 CD, 3
635CD, 636CD,
637CD, 638CD,
LC 630, Quadra 6
68LC040
66MHz
PPC 601
CPU
Quadra 605
68LC040
50MHz
PPC 601
CPU
Centris 610
68LC040
40MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, PDS/logic boards
Quadra 610/
610DOS
68040
50MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, PDS/logic boards
Chapter 6 Processor and Memory 151
Mac OS Model
Processor
Speed
Upgradeable?
Upgrade Technology
Centris 650,
Quadra 650
68040
66MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, PDS/logic board^
Centris, Quadra
660AV
68040
50MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, logic board
Quadra 700
68040
50MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, PDS
Quadra 800
68040
66MHz
PPC 601, 604
PDS, logic board
(8500)
Quadra 840AV
68040
80MHz
PPC 601, 604
Logic board (8500)
Quadra 900
68040
50MHz
040, PPC 601
CPU, PDS
Quadra 950
68040
66MHz
PPC 601
PDS
PM6100, 6100AV,
6100/DOS, Performa
6110,6112,6115,
6116, 6117, 6118
PPC 601
60/66MHZ
PPC 604, G3
PDS
PM7100, 7100AV
PPC 601
66/80MHZ
PPC 604, G3
PDS
PM 8100, 8100AV,
8110, 8115
PPC 601
80/100/
llOMHz
PPC 604, G3
Logic board (8500),
PDS
Performa 5200,
5210, 5215, 5220,
Power Mac 5200/75
PPC 603
75MHz
No
N/A
Performa 5260,
5270, 5300,
Power Mac 5260/100,
5300/100
PPC 603e
lOOMHz
No
N/A
Performa 5260/120,
5280, 5320, 5400,
5410, 5420, PM
5260/120, 5400/120
PPC 603e
120MHz
No
N/A
Performa 5400/160,
5430
PPC 603e
160MHz
No
N/A
Performa 5400/
180, 5440, PM
5400/180
PPC 603e
180MHz
No
N/A
PM 5400/200
PPC 603e
200MHz
No
N/A
PM 5500/225
PPC 603e
225MHz
No
N/A
PM 5500/250
PPC 603e
250MHz
No
N/A
(continued)
152 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Table 6-2 (continuecf)
Mac OS Model
Processor
Speed
Upgradeable?
Upgrade Technology
Performa 6200,
6205, 6210,6214,
6216, 6218, 6220,
6230
PPC 603
75MHz
No
N/A
Performa 6260,
6290, 6300, 6310
PPC 603e
lOOMHz
No
N/A
Performa 6320
PPC 603e
120MHz
No
N/A
Performa 6360
PPC 603e
160MHz
No
N/A
Performa 6400/
180, 6410
PPC 603e
180MHz
No
N/A
Performa 6400/
200, 6420
PPC 603e
200MHz
No
N/A
PM 4400/160
PPC 603e
160MHz
No
N/A
4400/200, 4400PC
PPC 603e
200MHz
No
N/A
PM 6500
PPC 603e
200-300MHZ
No
N/A
PM 7200,7215
PPC 601
75-120MHZ
PPC 604e
Logic board (7600)
PM 7220/200
PPC 603e
200MHz
PPC 604e
Logic board (7600)
PM 7300
PPC 604e
166-200MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
PM 7500/100
PPC 601
lOOMHz
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
PM 7600
PPC 604e
120-200MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
PM 8500, 8600
PPC604/604e 120-300MHz
PPC 604e, G3'
Daughtercard
PM 9500, 9600
PPC 604e
120-350MHZ
PPC 604e, G3'
Daughtercard
PM 9500/9600MP
2 PPC 604e
180-200MHZ
2 PPC 604e
Daughtercard
PM C3 series
G3 (PPC 750)
233-300MHZ
G3
CPU
Power Computing Systems
Power 100/120
PPC 601
100-120MHZ
PPC 604e
PDS
PowerBase 180,
200, 240
PPC 603e
180-240MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
PowerWave 120,
132, 150
PPC 604
120-1 50MHz
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
PowerCurve 120,
PowerCenter 120,
132 150/166/180
PPC 604
120- 180MHz
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 153
Mac OS Model
Processor
Speed
Upgradeable?
Upgrade Technology
PowerCenter Pro
180,210, 240
PPC 604e
180-250MHZ
PPC 603e, G3
Daughtercard
PowerTower Pro
180, 200, 225, 250
PPC 604e
180-250MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
UMAX Systems
c500 series
PPC 603e
140-240MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
CPU
c600 series
PPC 603e
180-280MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
CPU
]700 series
PPC 604e
150-233MHZ
PPC 604e, G3
Daughtercard
s900 series
PPC 604e
150-250MHZ
PPC 604E, G3
Daughtercard
1 Must be upgraded with a logic board upgrade to an LC 575 or Performa 570 series before the processor
upgrade can be installed.
2 These Macs can be upgraded to PowerPC using either a PDS card or a logic board upgrade to a Power
Macintosh 6100.
3 The Mach 5 series of 604e processors (which boosted speeds to 300- and 350MHz in the shipping versions of
some 8600 and 9600 model Power Macs) can't be upgraded with 604e processors, because more powerful 604e
processors were never made (they can still be upgraded to G3 and beyond).
As you can see from the table, upgrades are slightly more popular and viable in
Macs than you may have realized. A lot of models have some sort of upgrade path
to keep them up to speed for many years. It's especially interesting to note that the
Mac market has gone through some fairly definitive transition points that trace the
contemporary theory (and market demands) that governed upgradeability. Some
major issues in the history of the Mac market can suggest why certciin models are
added to in one way whereas others are upgraded in another.
First, many 68030 machines (especially those intended for business use) can be
upgraded to 68040-level processors, making them capable, in many cases, of
running Mac OS 8.0. (Mac OS 8.0 was the first Mac OS to exclude 68030 machines.)
This upgradeability is almost always offered by third-party vendors and really
became popular only after vendors realized that the PDS slot was a good way to
boost performance to 68040 levels or better. The 68040 was a slight departure from
the earlier 68000 series processors, with a different cache scheme and slightly more
advanced internals. This made it attractive for an upgrade, especially after a lot of
software programs were upgraded to 040 compatibility. These upgrades remain
popular because the Mac OS has stopped supporting processors older than 68040s
in Mac OS 8.0. Some cards can upgrade to 68040 but don't support later Mac OS
versions, so shop for that capability if it interests you.
154 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Unofficial upgrades: Logic boards and clock chipping
Table 6-2 pretty much focuses on ""official" upgrades, by which I mean upgrades offered by
Apple or another reasonably well-received vendor that seem to have gone through an
engineering and testing phase on the released product.
If you find you"re stuck with a machine that's not officially upgradeable, there might be
other ways to go about speeding things up -but you'll need to be a bit handy with elec-
tronics.
One way to upgrade a nonupgradeable Mac is to simply swap motherboards with a similar
model that uses the same case, cabling, and other miscellany. This isn't always the easiest
thing to do; there are minor differences in many Mac models that seem similar. But you'll
find that, in some cases, you might be lucky with this approach. For instance, you might be
able to upgrade an aging 68LC040-based Performa all-in-one model (like the Performa
630) with a similar pull-out logic board from a Performa 6200 series. At least. I've heard of
that working. I've also heard of it not working. Many Performa and education-oriented
Power Macintosh machines have similar logic board designs, making it possible to upgrade
through many leaps in technology. I've seen a Performa 575 running a 200MHz 603e pro-
cessor; an upgrade like changing a Performa 6200 into a 300MHz 603e (from a Power
Macintosh 6500) should be a no-brainer.
Check around in Usenet newsgroups and on the Web to see what type of motherboard
swaps have brought people luck, but realize that you're taking matters into your own
hands -like your warranty and the likelihood that certified technicians will tell you to fly a
kite if something goes wrong. So where do you find the boards? For starters, try Shreve
Systems (www.shrevesystems.com/), NEXCOMP (www.nexcomp.com/), MilagroMac
(www.mi1agromac.com/upgrades.html) or We Love Macs (www.lcvemacs.com/).
Usenet and used Mac Web sites are also good bets.
If you're really a hobbyist type, you might enjoy clock chipping your Macintosh's processor.
Clock chipping is a process that increases the clock speed at which your Mac's processor
runs, based on the assumption the processor was originally set at a lower clock rate than
the Mac's logic board can handle to avoid quality-control problems. This is usually a safe
bet, but it doesn't necessarily make clock chipping a great idea.
If you're the sort of person who will perform a clock-chipping upgrade anyway (the basic pro-
cess replaces the existing quartz oscillating clock on your logic board with a faster- or a vari-
able-clock), this won't deter you. I'm not actually against the process. In my view, the prob-
lem Is two-fold: Clock chipping too often introduces errors, including heat problems, that
affect stability. Plus, it usually just isn't that overwhelming of a speed gain. Instead of clock
chipping, I recommend saving your pennies for more RAM or cache -or even a new Mac.
Chapter 6 ^ Processor and Memory 155
Second, the transition from 68040 to PowerPC was a big deal in the Mac world in
1993 and 1994, with many models of that time reflecting Apple’s desire to give
everyone upgrade options. Most of those cards and logic board upgrades are no
longer available for retail sale; you’ll need to comb the upgrade mail-order houses
and the used markets to see if you can find what you’re looking for.
Third, most Macs based on the 604e processor are easily upgradeable to faster 604e
and/or GIMevel processors, with the exception of the Motorola clones and others
based on Motorola sublicenses. Those particular models don’t really have much of
an upgrade path at all for the time being, other than extra system and cache RAM.
Performing the upgrade
If you’ve gotten your hands on the information and parts you need to move ahead
with your upgrading task, you’re pretty much ready to roll. In all cases, you’ll
probably need to review the instructions in Chapter 5 for getting your particular
Mac model open and exposed for the upgrading. You’ll likely be working through an
enjoyable experience that’s free of Mac internal headaches, but you’d best have a
set of tools on hand anyway to contend with Phillips-head screws, the occasional
flathead screw, and, in rare instances, a T15 Torx screw or two.
Here are a few other things you’ll want to consider before performing the upgrade:
4 Back up your data. Even if you don’t want to, you should back up the system
you’re about to upgrade. There’s a chance you’ll either destroy the Mac, and
then run screaming out the room with your arm on fire (in which case neither
1, Apple, nor IDG Books can claim any culpability), or you might install a
processor upgrade that goes nuts and starts overwriting everything on the
drive. Although these things aren’t terribly likely, I imagine some folks have
managed to live through worse and were very pleased that they’d decided to
back up their hard drives.
^ Electrically ground yourself . Even if you take a cavalier approach to static
electricity around your RAM, hard drive, and small pets, remember that a
grounding strap costs about $10, whereas a new high-speed processor is
usually worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. It’s the most expensive
component in most Macs, so you should handle your processor with static-
free care.
4* Handle with care. Use the antistatic bags, software packaging, and anything
else that comes with your processor upgrade to store it until you’re ready to
install it. Then, if you’re replacing a card or daughtercard that you’ve removed
from your Mac, store that component in the same antistatic bag and software
packaging to keep it safe. (You may need it again or decide to sell it.)
156 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
♦ Know your system. When you’re upgrading the logic board or processor, it’s
incredibly important to know what’s really going on inside your Mac. Get a
good feel for what components you’re supposed to be removing or replacing,
and make sure you’re doing everything according to procedure.
^ Label everything. If you’re in doubt when you’re inside your Mac, label
something with a piece of masking tape or an office-supply sticky label. (Don’t
use Post-lt-style stickles, because they’ll fall off of hot surfaces and wiring.)
> Consider a clean install. If you perform a clean install of the Mac OS soon after
installing your upgrade (and making sure it’s fairly problem free), you may
have better luck with it over the long haul. Any assumptions the Mac OS made
about your computer (certain portions of the OS can only be installed on
Macs with particular power capabilities) might be changed when you reinstall
with your upgrade in place.
The most important advice I can give you is to know your limits. If you’re not
comfortable performing this upgrade, admit that to yourself and move on. Most of
these processor upgrades aren’t complicated, but they do involve very expensive,
somewhat delicate components. If you consign the task to an official Apple
authorized dealer, they’re responsible if something gets messed up. They’ll also
perform the upgrade by the book, test it, and perhaps even guarantee the
workmanship for a period of time.
Expansion card upgrades
This sort of processor upgrade is, bar none, the simplest to complete. All you really
need to do is locate the available PDS slot in your Macintosh and plug in the
upgrade. You’ll then install a little software that will activate the card, accelerating
the Mac the next time you restart.
The only real issue with PDS upgrades is you’ll need the PDS slot to be available for
you to perform the upgrade. If the slot is taken up by something else — such as a
video or multimedia card — you’ll have to remove it before you can install the
processor upgrade. This can be an important issue if the card is critical to your
work or if you don’t have any available NuBus slots for similar cards.
Some Macs will also require an adapter (the Mac Ilsi comes to mind, as well as
some other Macs in slimline cases), so make sure you get the adapter when you
purchase the accelerator.
The following walks through a Mac llci upgraded with the Presto 040 card from
Sonnet Technologies. In this case the new processor is a clock-doubled 68040
processor that runs internally at 80MHz but communicate with the rest of the
system at 40MHz. That’s quite a boost over the standard Mac Ilci, which runs with a
25MHz 68030 processor. Read the warnings in the “Performing the upgrade”
section, and then follow these steps:
Chapter 6 ^ Processor and Memory 157
1. Shut down the Mac, ground yourself, and pull the power cord. Remove the
Mac’s cover.
2. Locate the PDS slot, which should be labeled. (Make sure you’ve chosen the
PDS slot and not a NuBus slot.) If there’s a card already in the slot, remove it.
(Make sure it isn’t connected to any wires through the back of the case, and
then grab the card at each top corner and pull straight up.)
3. Make sure you’ve discharged static electricity, and then open the static-free
bag that contains the upgrade card. Remove the card.
4. Line the card up carefully over the PDS socket. Note the notches in PDS
connector on the card and how they match up correctly in only one direction
relative to the PDS slot.
5. Press the card into the socket (see Figure 6-3). It should go in fairly easily. If
you find yourself forcing it too hard, you may have the card facing the wrong
direction. Look at the connector on the card and on the logic board to orient
the card correctly, and then install the card again.
Figure 6-3: Press the card gently into the socket with even pressure
on each side of the top of the card.
6. Close up the case (or you can test your Mac for a short time with the case
open), and then plug the Mac in and start it up.
7. You probably won’t experience a speed boost until you install the software
that came with the accelerator. Install that software, and restart the Mac.
158 Part II 4' Performing the Upgrade
Now you can sit back and watch the Mac to see if things seem accelerated. The
startup process may not seem very speedy — it involves the hard drive, ROM, and a
number of different things that you haven’t sped up with the accelerator. Instead,
watch for telltale signs in applications that, in the past, ran a bit slow.
If you’re having trouble just getting started, read the instructions and any
troubleshooting issues in the accelerator’s documentation closely. Remember that
you’ve changed the processor after you’ve installed the Mac OS, so it may be a bit
confused about things — specifically, Issues like 32-bit addresses (in the Memory
control panel) and the 040 cache setting (in its own control panel). Other model-
specific settings may get confused, too.
If you really feel as though you’re not seeing much acceleration, you should
troubleshoot the card by isolating the card’s extension and restarting. Next, test a
particularly tough processing challenge (something like recalculating a
spreadsheet, creating a complicated chart, or performing a Photoshop special
effect). Then, test with the extension enabled and see if the card does things faster.
If not, check to make sure the extension is loading as the Mac starts up. Shut down
the Mac and open it up to make sure the card is seated correctly.
If everything looks good and it still seems things aren’t working, you might need to
troubleshoot for a conflict or software problem (see Chapters 30 through 33) or call
the manufacturer to see if they have new software drivers and/or troubleshooting
tips for the particular Mac model and accelerator you’re using.
Don't forget that RAM is a big part of speeding up your Mac, as discussed in Chapter
2. If you're squeezed for RAM, you may not see the speed boost you're expecting
from your accelerator card.
Logic board upgrades
Although a walkthough of a complete logic board upgrade is beyond the scope of
this book (the main problem is that every different Mac case requires a different
procedure), I hit some high points here on this subject. Most importcintly, don’t
approach a logic board upgrade lightly. In one sense it’s a great idea if you know
that the logic board will fit correctly in the case; if you install the new, factory-built
logic board, there really can’t be a conflict that crops up, because you’re not using a
third-party accelerator or something similar.
Installation is critical, however. It’s not impossible to do, by any stretch of the
imagination, but you’ll need to take some precautions. Most of all, consider
whether or not you want to spend the time it’ll take for the upgrade. Also, rather
than putting a used motherboard in your Mac, why not just buy and use the
complete, newer Mac from which it came?
Chapter 6 ^ Processor and Memory 159
Of course, if you have a slide-out logic board (like many all-in-one and Performa
models), you probably don't have too much to worry about in this arena. Just be care-
fully grounded and prepared with antistatic materials when you pull the logic board
out according to the instructions in Chapter 5. (Don't forget to transfer RAM and
cache RAM to the new logic board.) Slide the new logic board back into the Mac. If all
goes well, you'll have a new, faster computer.
If you’ve gotten past those issues, here are some other things to consider:
4 Read the warnings in the ‘Terforming the upgrade'" section.
^ Check the ratings. Make sure the case and power supply are really rated to
handle the new logic board. Just because the cases look the same doesn’t
always mean the innards are. Specifically, check the rating on the power
supply to make sure your old case’s supply can handle the new logic board.
> Be organized. A real pro at this sets aside a few hours for the changeover,
reads up on the particular models in question, and even keeps a written log of
what he or she does throughout the surgery.
4 Root around to find out if anything in your current Mac is incompatible or known
to cause trouble with the logic board you'll be installing. For instance, is the new
logic board known to have a conflict with the hard drive model in your Mac?
(This could be a tough one to answer, but you might find help in Usenet
discussion groups or on Mac acceleration-oriented Web sites.)
^ Ground yourself electrically and be very careful with components inside your
computer. In particular, keep metal from coming in contact with the logic
board or scraping across it, particularly if it’s still plugged in. You’ll have to
unplug the Mac to remove the logic board, so a grounding strap is absolutely
necessary.
4 - Keep track of everything! If you go into this upgrade without a plan, you will
either (a) lose a screw or (b) have a screw left over. Don’t count on yourself to
remember where everything went or keep track of parts left on the table or in
the carpet. Instead, label everything (cables, wiring, ribbon cables) and keep
glasses or cups around to hold screws and parts. Also, make a note of the
direction that something is connected or plugged into something else,
especially if it can clearly go more than one way. Labels that tell you which
side is “left” or “up” are perfect, as long as you decide before hand what
exactly “left” and “up” are going to mean in this context.
4 Know what you're doing. Before removing a cable or touching a setting, reason
out what, exactly, the function of that particular gizmo is. If you know what
something is supposed to do, you’ll be less likely to forget where it goes when
you’re reinstalling it later.
160 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Assuming you’ve grounded yourself, opened the case, and you’re ready to do the
swap, here’s a very general description of the process:
1. Remove any expansion cards and store them safely in a static-free area.
2. You’ll need to focus on removing any connections to the logic board. This
includes labeling the ribbon cables for your drives and removing them,
labeling and removing the power connection to the logic board from the
power supply (note carefully how they’re connected), and labeling and
removing any small wires that connect LED lights and the speaker to the logic
board. You should also label and remove any port connections — serial, SCSI,
and so on — to the logic board (at least, those that aren’t already part of the
logic board).
3. You’ll need to remove obstructions from the logic board. If necessary, remove
the hard drive and floppy drive. (They may swing out, they may be anchored
to the logic board, they may not be in the way at all.) Keep track of screws
and learn how the drive assembly or drive cage is pulled apart and put back
together. You may also need to remove the power supply. Be aware that
everything in a Mac isn’t always held together by screws; often there are
levers and notches that you need to push or pull to get things to pop apart.
4. Make note of how the logic board is connected to the case. (A diagram on
your notepad can be a good idea.) It probably uses a combination of plastic
standoffs, screws, washers and other mounting braces or parts. Once you’ve
got it figured out, carefully disassemble it, and then remove the logic board.
You’ve got everything out. Now, just reverse the preceding process to reinstall
everything along with the new logic board. Once you’re done and it seems
everything has been a big success, you might want to do any other transferring you
need to do between logic boards — RAM, cache, accelerators, and so on — and then
test the Mac with the box open so you can get back in if something isn’t right. You’ll
likely have a cable or two backward — check all the lights, sounds, and other
indicators on your Mac. If they’re not working or are working in an odd way, you
may have messed up a connection. Shut down, and head back into the machine to
fix things.
CPU upgrades
Again, these are very specific to the model of Macintosh that’s being upgraded, as
well as being reasonably rare compared to the other types of upgrades. Although I
recommend you strongly consider having a professional install your logic board
(and preferably a professional who is then financially responsible for any errors), I
really recommend it for CPU upgrades. Actually, it’s not amazingly difficult to install
a processor upgrade — just amazingly delicate. A CPU chip connects to the logic
board by way of some very spindly little pin connectors that can easily bend or
break. And when you bend or break one, you’re well on your way to having ruined
the processor, which can be worth quite a bit of money.
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 161
On newer Macs, the CPU chip is installed in a Zero Insertion Force (ZIF) socket,
which is a bit easier to work with. These sockets are designed so that a small lever,
located on the side of the socket, can be easily lifted. Once it’s lifted, the pressure
that holds each pin in place in the socket is released, and the CPU can be pulled out
with just one finger on each side of it. Reinserting the CPU is just as easy: You
properly align the chip, and then give it a tiny tap. As a result, the chip will slide
into the socket, enabling you to lower the lever and tighten the chip back into
place.
Interestingly, touching these ZIF sockets, when installed new on a Power Macintosh
G3, for instance, will void the Apple warranty. Apple puts a seal over the ZIF socket
that must be broken to access the processor. Even though ZIF is a better way to go,
Apple still believes it’s complicated enough that you should take the machine to an
authorized service center to upgrade the processor chip.
But in most cases, you won’t have to worry about that, because your chip upgrade
will probably not involve a ZIF socket or any of that stuff. Yours will be much, much
tougher.
Seriously, with older Macs, you’ll need a chip puller and some patience (work the
chip slowly out of the socket, moving to one side, lifting a slight amount, and then
moving to the next side and lifting a slight amount). You’ll also need good
instructions; if you’re performing a chip upgrade using a third-party kit, make sure
the kit is designed specifically for your Mac model and the instructions are
complete. Go slowly, ground yourself, and don’t bend a pin.
Note
If you do bend a pin — but you don't break it — stop right there and take the whole
mess immediately to a service center. They should be able to salvage the CPU.
Daughtercard upgrades
These, thank the maker, are easy enough to accomplish. A daughtercard is really a
simple extension of the PDS idea — instead of being an open slot on the logic board
for various upgrades, it’s a single slot designed to take a board that contains the
Mac’s CPU. This makes Macs incredibly easy to upgrade and has become something
of a fixture in new systems, at least for the time being.
Every daughtercard-upgradeable Mac is a Power PC 604e or above, so you’ll only be
using this method on the more recent machines. When you’re shopping for a
daughtercard upgrade, you need to be careful that the particular upgrade you’re
looking at supports your Mac model, as the bus speeds and processor speeds need
to sync up in an exact multiple. (A 50MHz bus will work with a 200MHz processor,
but not with a 233MHz processor.) Some daughtercards have auto-synching bus and
processor speeds that enable you to just drop one card in a number of different
Mac models, where it will sync itself to the best speed possible.
162 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
There’s another type of processor upgrade you’ll encounter — the variable speed
daughtercard upgrade. With these, you have a dial or other sort of setting that
enables you to try to push the envelope a bit; you can set the bus speed and
processor speed to see if you can sweat the last little bit of performance out of your
machine. Personally, I’d walk away from one of these cards if it was more expensive,
unless you want the flexibility to put the card in different systems. If you like the
idea of all the settings, though, grab one of these cards and get ready to install it.
Installing a daughtercard is a pretty straightforward process. With the exception of
the Power Computing Power Center Pro (I can’t speak for other models in the
Power Computing, but that particular machine, which I own, is a bear), every
daughtercard-upgradeable Mac has had a very clear, wide-open way to get at the
card. This example shows a Sonnet Crescendo G3 upgrade card being installed in a
Power Macintosh 7300.
As far as precautions, there are only a few:
> Read the warnings in the “Performing the upgrade” section.
4 Be aware of static electricity discharge and wear a grounding strap. Be aware
of your surroundings as well (get rid of any liquid, kids, and free-flowing
molten lava), because the cards you’re holding in your hands are likely worth
hundreds or thousands of dollars.
4* Speaking of hands, don’t reach into a Mac that’s been running awhile and grab
the daughtercard — the accordion-like metal all over the card is a heat sink,
designed to dissipate heat from the processor. Wait for it to cool for a few
minutes or more before touching it, and then be careful at first.
Here’s how to install the typical daughtercard upgrade:
1. Shut down the Mac, ground yourself, and pull the power cord. Remove the
Mac’s cover and open the case so you can see the daughtercard.
2. The current processor will already be in the daughtercard slot. Check it to
make sure it’s not hot. Make sure you’ve discharged electricity, grab it by each
top edge, and remove it from the slot. Put it down in a safe and static-free area
on your desktop or work table.
3. Open the static-free bag that contains the upgrade card. Unwrap the card.
4. Line the card up carefully over the daughtercard slot. The card will only fit in
one direction because one section of the card’s interface is slightly larger than
the other part.
5. Press the card into the socket (see Figure 6-4). It should go in fairly easily. If
you find yourself forcing it too hard, you may have the card facing the wrong
direction or misaligned.
chapter 6 ^ Processor and Memory 163
Figure 6-4: Press the daughtercard into the socket with even
pressure on each side of the top of the card.
If your daughtercard doesn’t have special settings, all that's left is to button up the
Macintosh and start it up. In some cases, you might experience the speed gain
immediately. In others, you’ll need to load the included software so that the
accelerator's extensions are installed, and then restart the Mac to enjoy your
newfound wonder machine.
If your daughtercard does feature settings for the bus speed and processor speed,
you might want to experiment with the case open for a while. Following the
instructions that came with the card, pick and choose to find the best settings for
your particular Mac. While you search for the best settings, look for a balance
between over-rewing your Mac and getting the best speeds that keep the system
stable. If you suspect there's extra crashing as a result of the daughtercard, try
backing it down a notch or so in bus and processor speed, and then make sure
you’re using the most recent version of the card’s extensions and utilities.
Remember that the card is the only processor you’ve got in the machine, which is
different from some upgrades, where both the old and new processors can be in the
Mac at the same time. If you experience trouble getting the Mac to start up, check
the card. If it isn’t plugged in correctly, your Mac doesn’t have a processor, making
it less than useful.
164 Part II 4 - Petforming the Upgrade
Other difficulties may be attributable to problems with the extension software
(especially if you’ve recently upgraded the Mac OS) or to the card not being
completely compatible with your Mac. If you have such trouble, contact the
manufacturer to see if they recommend another unit or a slightly slower one that
might prove more compatible.
Upgrading Memory
Maybe 1 should have made this section appear first in this chapter. After all, in
almost all cases, memory is the most important upgrade. Too often the RAM
requirements are spiraling past our aging machines, leaving them slower than they
really need to be, if only because they don’t have enough RAM to really shine. Once
you’ve used all the physical RAM in your Mac, you’re left with solutions like Virtual
Memory and Connectix RAMDoubler — solutions that take processor time to
implement and access the hard drive constantly, which slows down everything.
So, if your Mac runs the software you need it to run (that is, if you’re not upgrading
so you can still take advantage of the latest Mac OS version or to move up to some
level of PowerPC performance), and your Mac just seems a little sluggish, you
should look into getting more RAM for your system.
Of course, there are other things you can do with memory that can increase your
Mac’s speed, including managing well the memory you do have in your system and
adding cache RAM. (For more on the basics of RAM, see Chapter 2.)
System RAM
In fact, RAM can be useful for more than just running programs. You can hand RAM
over to your Mac’s disk cache, which tends to speed up accesses to the hard drive.
You can also use RAM to create a RAM disk, which acts as a regular floppy or hard
disk, but is accessed at the speed of RAM. This is a grecit way to speed up a Web
browser, for instance, enabling it to place all its browser data files on the RAM
disk so that they can be easily accessed when you visit a particular Web page more
than once.
The amount of RAM your Mac needs keeps going up and up. At the time of writing,
Apple doesn’t seem willing to sell a Mac OS system with less than 32MB of RAM and
that’s a reasonable, if not stellar, minimum. Recently, a glut of RAM (and minor
improvements in RAM technology) has kept prices so low for months and months
that programmers and computer manufacturers are getting used to RAM being
cheap. This means they’re willing to be a bit frivolous with it when they’re creating
their programs or adding features to operating system versions.
Chapter 6 4 Processor and Memory 165
So, if you use your Mac on a daily basis in a professional capacity, you probably
want between 48- and 64MB of RAM to work with office applications like Microsoft
Office and FileMaker Pro. If you use your Mac for professional graphics and layout
work, relying on Photoshop, PageMaker, QuarkXPress or similar programs, you
might want 64MB as a lower limit, with 128MB of RAM not being an unreasonable
amount.
For high-end tasks such as full-time Photoshop work, running a server computer,
rendering animation, and application development, youVe more likely to want
256MB of RAM. Apple has made Macs capable of accepting 1GB of RAM, which is
quite a lot, but probably won’t seem so in just a few more months or years
(especially with more and more convergence between video production, audio
production, and computing). QuickTime on its own will likely drive people to install
much more RAM, as desktop video and audio production slowly become as popular
as desktop publishing.
Check your RAM settings
If you’re not sure how much RAM you currently have in your Mac, it’s easy enough
to find out. In the Finder, choose About This Computer (or About This Macintosh)
from the Apple menu. In the resulting dialog box, you can see all the applications
that are currently running and how much space each of them takes up (see
Figure 6-5).
Figure 6-5: The amount of RAM you currently have
and how much each application takes up
166 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Notice that this dialog box tells you a number of things, including the amount of
built-in RAM (based on the physical, actual RAM chips) that’s installed in your Mac
and the amount of Virtual Memory available, if you have Virtual Memory turned on
in the Memory control panel. Virtual memory enables you to use hard drive space
as a way to increase the amount of system RAM available to your Mac; this way it
can quickly swap programs that aren’t being used or bits of data to the hard drive,
and then make room for something that is being used. Although convenient,
because it allows you to run more demanding programs than you might other
wise be able to. Virtual Memory, no matter how sophisticated, will always slow
your Mac down.
You can set Virtual Memory on or off via the Memory control panel, as well as
decide how much of the hard drive you’d like set aside for virtual memory. Usually,
setting it right at 1MB over the amount of physical RAM you have in your Mac is a
good balance between speed and usefulness. You can set it higher if your Mac is
struggling to run a particular program or two, and you’re willing to take a
performance hit.
The Memory control panel will also enable you to create a RAM disk and manage
the amount of RAM you dedicate to a cache. This cache reads ahead on the hard
drive and tries to store data — in high speed RAM — that it thinks your programs
may need next. If it’s right, that’s a hit to the cache, which gives you a little speed
burst. If it’s right often enough every second, you’ll begin to see a decent speed
increase as you work on the Mac. The rule of thumb is to add about 96K of cache
for every megabyte of physical RAM you have in your system. If you’re running low
on RAM for your programs, though, you can get a little more back by turning down
your cache settings.
A RAM disk is great if you’ve got some extra RAM to play with. Create a RAM disk
and you can store data files in a portion of RAM that’s been set aside to act as
though it’s a floppy disk or a small hard drive (see Figure 6-6). The difference is, it’s
really RAM, which is must faster than any sort of physical storage. Of course, the
downside is that a RAM disk is just as volatile as RAM itself; although a RAM disk’s
data will survive a soft restart (Special O Restart), it won’t survive the Mac being
shut down. In that case, you’ll lose what’s on the RAM disk. The best plan? Place
data that isn’t mission-critical, such as files from a game program or Web browser
cache files, on the RAM disk to provide speedy access.
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory ] QJ
Figure 6-6: I always have a RAM disk on my desktop to store noncritical files where
I can get at them quickly.
Working with RAM
Your Mac’s programs have to actively deal with RAM too. In fact, they have to
request RAM whenever they’re launched so that they have space in memory to
store their data and programming code. Without enough RAM, the program won’t
run well or at all; with too much RAM, the program is hoarding system memory
from the rest of your programs.
You can check a program’s RAM allocation by selecting the program’s actual icon
(not an alias) in the Finder and choosing File Get Info. You’ll then see the memory
requirements for the program in the lower-right corner of the Get Info box.
You can change those settings to something higher if you are getting “Out of
Memory” error messages when working with the program or if it runs more slowly
than you believe it should. You can also set the requested value to a higher number
so that the application tries to get a lot of memory, but will take less if you’re
already running many other programs.
168 Part 11 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Interestingly, all of this allocating and reallocating of RAM can lead to a fairly
common problem that people have with their Macs — fragmented memory. In the
last section of this book, you’ll read about software problems that can be caused by
a hard drive becoming fragmented: Too many files have been written and rewritten
to portions of that drive so that there are small, left-over fragments everywhere.
That same sort of thing can happen in RAM.
If you’ve opened and closed a lot of applications (usually over days or weeks) since
the last time you shut down or restarted your Mac, little bits of that memory may
not have been deallocated every time a program was shut down. After a little time,
this fragmentation can cause trouble when you launch other applications.
Eventually, you’ll get “Out of Memory” error messages or other more problematic
crashes. If you experience something similcu*, and you’ve been using your Mac
nonstop for quite some time, consider restarting in order to defragment memory.
(When you shut down or restart, most of your Mac’s system memory gets wiped
clean, and you can start over again.)
Adding RAM
If you’ve decided you’re ready to dig in and change the amount of RAM in your Mac,
you’ll need to figure out how much RAM your Mac can handle. That’s what Table 6-3
is for, and the information it contains will also tell you what sort of RAM to buy and
how many RAM modules you need to add at once.
If you're serious about adding RAM, I recommend you download the Apple Memory
Guide document from Apple's Support Web site (www.app1e.com/suppport/). It
not only has memory requirements for different Macs, but it even includes diagrams
that show you how and where to add RAM to your particular Mac system.
The RAM Table
Each Mac model ships with a certain amount of RAM and generally offers at least
one slot for upgrading (often some of the Mac’s base RAM is soldered onto the logic
board). Each model also has a certain type of RAM technology that it needs to use,
and the RAM has to be a certain speed, in nanoseconds. Finally, in some cases you
can’t just install one RAM module. Instead, you’re forced to install two or more to
fill a memory bank or series of modules that are accessed as one.
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 169
Table 6-3
Macintosh RAM Upgrades
Model
Base RAM
Max RAM
Slots
Type
Speed
Croups of...
Mac 128k
128K
128K
0
N/A
N/A
N/A
Mac 512k
512K
512K
0
N/A
N/A
N/A
Classic
1MB
4MB
2
30-pin
SIMM
120 ns
2
Classic II
2MB
10MB
2
30-pin
SIMM
100 ns
2
Color Classic
4MB
10MB
2
30-pin
SIMM
100 ns
2
Color Classic II
4MB
36MB
1
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Plus
1MB
4MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
150 ns
2
SE
1MB
4MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
150 ns
2
SE/30
1MB
32MB
8
30-pin
SIMM
120 ns
4
Mac II
1MB
20MB
8
30-pin
SIMM
120 ns
4
Mac llx
1MB
32MB
8
30-pin
SIMM
120 ns
4
Ilex
1MB
128MB
8
30-pin
SIMM
llci
1MB
128MB
8
30-pin
SIMM
80 ns
4
llsi
1MB
17MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
100 ns
4
livi, livx
4MB
68MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
80 ns
4
llfx
4MB
128MB
8
64-pin’
SIMM
80 ns
4
Mac TV
4MB
SMB
1
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
LC, Performa
200
2MB
10MB
2
30-pin
SIMM
100 ns
2
(continued)
170 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Table 6-3 (continued)
Model
Base RAM
Max RAM
Slots
Type
Speed
Croups oL.
LC II, Performa
250, 400,
405,410,430
4MB
10MB
2
30-pin
SIMM
100 ns
2
LC III/IIH-,
475, 520, 550,
575; Performa
275, 450, 460,
466, 467, 475,
476, 520, 550,
560, 575, 577,
578
4MB
36MB
1
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 600
4MB
68MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 580,
588, LC 580
8MB
52MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 630,
630CD, 635CD,
636CD, 637CD,
638CDLC630,
Quadra 630
4MB
36MB
1
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa
630DOS, 631 CD,
640DOS
8MB
52MB
2
SIMM
72-pin
80 ns
1
Quadra 605
4MB
36MB
1
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Centris 610,
Quadra 610,
610DOS
4MB
68MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Centris 650,
Quadra 650
4MB^
132MB2
4
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Centris,
Quadra 660AV
4MB
68MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
70 ns
1
Quadra 700
4MB
20MB
4
30-pin
SIMM
80 ns
4
Quadra 800
SMB
136MB
4
72-pin
SIMM
60 ns
1
Quadra 840AV
4MB
128MB
4
72-pin
SIMM
60 ns
1
Chapter 6 -f Processor and Memory 171
Model
Base RAM
Max RAM
Slots
Type
Speed
Croups of...
Quadra 900, 950 4MB
256MB
16
30-pin
SIMM
80 ns
4
PM 6100,
6100AV, 6100/
DOS; Performa
6110,6112,6115,
6116,6117,6118
8MB
72MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
2
PM 7100,
7100AV
8MB
136MB
4
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
2
PM 8100,
8100AV, 8110,
8115
8MB
264MB
8
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
2
PM 8100/1 10
16MB
264MB
8
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
2
Performa 5200,
5210, 5215,
5220, 5260,
5270 PM
5200/75
8MB
64MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 5260,
5270, 5300,
5320, Power Mac
5260/100, 5260/
1205300/100
16MB
64MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 5400,
5400/160,
5400/180, 5410,
5420, 5430,
5440, PM 5400/
120, 5400/180
16MB
136MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 5400/200
24MB
136MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 5500/
225, 5500/250
32MB
128MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
Performa 6200,
6205, 6214,
6216, 6260,
6290
8MB
64MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
(continued)
172 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Table 6-3 (continued)
Model
Base RAM
Max RAM
Slots
Type
Speed
Croups oL.
Performa 6210,
6218, 6220,
6230, 6300,
6310, 6320
16MB
64MB
2
72-pin
SIMM
80 ns
1
Performa 6360
16MB
136MB
2
168-pin
SIMM
70 ns
1
Performa 6400/
180, 6400/
200, 6410
16MB
136MB
2
168-pin
SIMM
70 ns
1
Performa 6420
24MB
136MB
2
168-pin
SIMM
70 ns
1
PM 4400/160
16MB
96MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 4400/200
16MB
160MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 4400PC
32MB
160MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 6500 series
32MB^
128MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 6500/300
64MB
128MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 7200 series
8MB
256MB
4
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 7215/90
16MB
256MB
4
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 7220/200
16MB
160MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 7220/200PC
32MB
160MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
PM 7300/
166,7300/180
16MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 7300/
180PC, 7300/
200
32MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 7500, 7600
8MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 7600/200
32MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
Chapter 6 ♦ Processor and Memory 173
Model
Base RAM
Max RAM
Slots
Type
Speed
Croups of...
PM 8200/100
8MB
256MB
4
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 8200/120
16MB
256MB
4
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 8500
16MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 8515
32MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 8600
32MB
512MB
8
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 9500/120,
9500/132,
9500/200
16MB
768MB
12
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 9500/
150 9515/132
8MB
768MB
12
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 9500/
180MP
32MB
768MB
12
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 9600/200,
9600/200MP,
9600/233
32MB
768MB
12
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM 9600/300,
9600/350
64MB
768MB
12
168-pin
DIMM
70 ns
1
PM C3 Desktop
32MB
192MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
10 ns^
1
PM C3 MT
32MB
384MB
3
168-pin
DIMM
10 ns^
1
20th Anniversary 32MB
128MB
2
168-pin
DIMM
60 ns
1
1 The lifx requires a unique 64-pin SIMM.
2 The Quadra 650 later came with SMB of base RAM, which raised its limit to 136MB.
3 The Power Macintosh 6500 Small Business Edition bundle came with 48MB of RAM.
4 C3 series computers use high-speed SO-DIMMs.
Before you run out and buy more RAM for your Mac, it’s always a good idea to pop
open your Mac’s case and take a look at how your RAM is distributed, it’s possible,
for instance, to have 4MB of RAM that’s filling your four RAM slots, because you
have four 1MB SIMMs. Or, you could have one 128MB DIMM in your Mac and still
have one or two RAM slots open for even more upgrading.
174 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
You should also read your Mac's manual to check and see if interleaving will increase
the performance of your Mac. In some models that are capable of being upgraded
one RAM module at a time, you can get a better performance gain if you install two
at a time, because each module then becomes a separate part of the main memory
allowing the Mac to take advantage of interleaving. When that happens, the proces-
sor can alternate between the modules when it retrieves data, thus speeding up the
process of gathering data from RAM. The speed boost usually hovers around 10 to 15
percent.
Adding the RAM
Adding RAM is certainly one of the easier upgrades, at least in most cases. You
won’t void your warranty or upset Apple or your clone’s manufacturer if you add
RAM — unless you have a very special circumstance or a new system yet-to-be-
introduced when this was written. (Check your manual just to be safe.) In general,
anyone can add RAM to a Mac.
The things you need to be careful of are the same things you worry about with
other upgrades — electrically grounding yourself; keeping your RAM modules away
from static, liquid, or other trauma; and not forcing or breaking anything inside the
Mac. Otherwise, RAM is very straightforward. The only problem you’ll have may be
getting your Mac’s case open and the RAM module slots exposed so you can reach
them (Apple and the clone vendors haven’t done a great job on every Mac in this
respect).
You also shouldn’t touch the contacts on a RAM module — handle it by the top
corners instead.
From there, adding RAM is straightforward in most systems, although one or two of
them can be slightly more challenging. Consult your manual and/or the Apple
Memory Guide document available from their Support Web site for more details on
your particular machine. SIMMs and DIMMs can be a little different, so take note.
(Also, don’t forget my admonishment regarding earlier compact Macs — Plus, SE,
SE/30 — back in Chapter 5. Upgrading the RAM in these models ranges from tough
and annoying to simply dangerous. Strongly consider taking these Macs to a
qualified service center.)
If it were a perfect world, every single RAM SIMM upgrade would go like this:
1. Shut down the Mac, ground yourself electrically, and unplug the Mac.
2. Open the Mac’s case. Find an empty RAM module slot.
Chapter 6 4- Processor and Memory 175
3. Make sure you’ve got the module turned the right direction. To fit into the
memory slot, the modules should go in at a 45-degree angle to the logic board
(see Figure 6-7).
Figure 6-7: Inserting a SIMM in a memory slot
4. With the module pushed into the memory slot at a 45-degree angle, tilt the
module up until it locks into the slot at 90 degrees. In some cases, little metal
or plastic hooks will grab the module and hold it in place.
5. Insert any other modules if your Mac requires more than one at a time.
That’s all you need to do. You can close your Mac and start it up to test if the RAM
module is working correctly and recognized by the Mac. Check the About This
Computer window or the Apple System Profiler to see the added RAM.
For a RAM DIMM installation, things are sometimes slightly different.
If it were a perfect world, every single RAM DIMM upgrade would go like this:
1. Shut down the Mac, ground yourself electrically, and unplug the Mac.
2. Open the Mac’s case. Find an empty RAM DIMM slot.
3. You’ll install the DIMM directly into the DIMM slot (not at an angle), so you
need to visually line up the notches on the bottom of the DIMM with the
ridges in the DIMM slot to make sure it’ll fit.
176 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
4. Push the DIMM clown into the slot. If all goes well, the release lever on the
side of the DIMM should lock into place (see Figure 6-8).
Figure 6-8: Inserting a DIMM into a memory slot
To release the DIMM, simply push down on the locking lever on the side of the
DIMM slot. This should pop the DIMM right out.
Does the RAM module just not seem to fit? It happens. These slots and modules are
supposed to be pretty standard, but that's not always the case. Try to buy RAM from a
Mac-knowledgeable dealer who can tell you which modules are best for your partic-
ular model. But if you get a module that doesn't fit, don't try to force it. Return it for
an exchange, probably on a slightly different make or brand of module.
Cache RAM
Cache RAM, as discussed in Chapter 2, is incredibly high-speed memory that's
designed to hold important information between regular RAM and the processor,
such that the processor is almost always accessing this high-speed memory instead
of regular RAM. That keeps the processor running at peak performance, instead of
forcing it to slow down while it waits for data to arrive from the main memory.
Many Mac systems can accept cache RAM upgrades that are placed in a special
cache RAM slot on the logic board. Check your manual to see if your Mac has a
socket for cache RAM. If it does, you can upgrade it the same as you would a
Chapter 6 > Processor and Memory 177
regular RAM module. Just shop for a cache RAM module for your particular Mac
model instead of a regular RAM module. (Cache RAM is usually much more
expensive than regular RAM. A megabyte of RAM can cost $3-$5, whereas 512
kilobytes of cache RAM can cost $25-$75, depending on the Mac model.)
Other Macs, especially older models, can accept a cache PDS card, which usually
helps to speed the machine up by 10 to 20 percent or so. If you’re pretty sure you
aren’t interested in investing in a processor upgrade that fits in the PDS slot of your
Mac II series machine (or if you have a model that can’t be upgraded by a PDS
processor card), you might want to pop in a cache RAM PDS card to get a decent
speed increase over regular performance.
You can't really do much about the cache in a G3 system, as most G3 processors use
a backside cache that's built onto the computer's daughtercard. But in earlier Power
Macs, a decent-sized level 2 cache is a must, even with Performa models and some
others in which Apple didn't originally install a cache module. If you have a Performa
6000 series Mac or a Power Macintosh of any type with no cache or only 128- or
256K of cache, you should seriously consider upgrading to 512K or 1MB of cache.
Your PowerPC will thank you.
Summary
> If you want speed when you’re using your applications and the Mac’s Finder,
then upgrading your processor is certainly one way to do that. Actually,
adding RAM is usually the first step, but many Mac models can be upgraded
to handle a processor that’s a generation ahead of the processor originally
shipped with the machine. Not only can that speed things up, but such an
upgrade might even enable you to use a Mac OS version that has been
upgraded so that it no longer supports your original machine. (This was true
of 68030-based Macs and Mac OS 8.0 and above, which no longer support
those earlier Macs, but do support some of those Macs when they’re
upgraded to 68040 processors.)
4 There are four different types of processor upgrade: expansion card upgrades,
processor upgrades, daughtercard upgrades, and logic board upgrades.
Expansion cards and daughtercards are the easiest, whereas processor
upgrades are the most delicate and logic board upgrades are the toughest.
That last trade-off is worth something, though, because a logic board upgrade
is the only upgrade that can give you all the features of a new Mac, like
support for more RAM, built-in AV features (if they exist), and other extras.
4 Upgrading with an expansion card or daughtercard is easy, but you should
really think twice before performing a processor or logic board upgrade on
your own. If you’re not mechanically inclined — or if you’re simply not
inclined to risk ruining a card worth thousands of dollars — consult an Apple
178 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Authorized Service center and see if they can upgrade it for you quickly and
safely.
4 RAM is even more important than processor upgrades, if only because the
fastest processor out there needs the breathing room that enough RAM
affords it. RAM and processor upgrades go hand-in-hand. Plus, RAM is one of
the easiest internal upgrades there is. Cache RAM isn’t much tougher, and it
can easily boost your Mac’s performance in an appreciable way.
4 4 4
Hard Drives
CHAP
A t one time, hard drives were incredibly expensive
components and it was difficult for the average user to
afford upgrading one. Instead, energy would be focused on
external removable drives, floppies, and tape backup. A few
years ago, Mac users pined for software solutions that would
compress data and applications while working with them,
saving precious hard drive space.
Tm not trying to be cavalier about this, but you should forget
all that stuff. Hard drives are really cheap these days.
Although removable drives are definitely still a good idea, you
should feel much more free about upgrading your Mac’s hard
drive capacity when you reach your current limits. The drives
are much cheaper these days, and there’s really no way to get
faster storage options for your Mac.
This can be really important if the Mac is going to be used for
graphics manipulation, desktop publishing, or multimedia
work. Fast, huge drives are necessary for those of us who play
with audio on a daily basis — not to mention people creating
video presentations, professional advertising layouts and
building kiosk presentations or burning CD-ROMs. Ail these
applications can require tons of hard drive space.
In addition, you’ll need some speed. Hard drive upgrades can
easily be tailored to the individual user, allowing you to focus
on simply adding more space, adding space for use in
professional multimedia, adding space for use in a workgroup
server situation or adding space for the ultimate in speed and
security. Each technology gets progressively more
complicated, but I’ll try to wade through them all, and you can
go as deep as you want to go. Whether you’re just upgrading a
home system or looking to add a video-editing studio to your
mix of Mac tasks, there’s a hard drive upgrade to help you.
4 ^ 4 >
In This Chapter
The types of hard
drive upgrades
SCSI explained
Chart: What options
does your Mac offer?
Add a hard drive to
your system
> 4 ^ 4 ^ >
180 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Hard Drive Types and Upgrades
It’s perfectly amazing how much hard drive space one person can use these
days. My current machine has 6GB of hard drive space, and the LAN in my office
features about 20GB of space on which I can drop files for backup, archiving, and
transferring between the different Macs. This book alone has over 75MB of
space dedicated to it to handle all the digital images and screenshots. And that
doesn’t even include the CD-ROM’s contents, which are being developed on yet
another Mac.
Whereas the purpose of most of the storage upgrades in my office has been to add
space (I’ve added internal and external drives to these Macs, most of the time just
to get a little more room for regular documents and applications), I’ve also had to
prioritize the types of hard drives, the speed of their interfaces, and the amount of
space dedicated to such activities as digital imaging and audio production. For
some jobs, hard drives need to be faster, not just bigger. In other cases, the drives
need to be easier to work with and more convenient.
Although it may not seem so, there are actually a number of different types of hard
drive upgrades, and just as many reasons to perform a hard drive upgrade in the
first place. It’s important to know not just the technologies involved in hard drive
upgrades, but the actual reasons for upgrading. You’ll also need a little information
on how to upgrade your particular machine; refer to Table 7-1, which appears later
in this section.
Reasons to upgrade
Aside from the obvious (“I need more space!”), you probably have some specific
reasons in mind for upgrading. Let’s take a look at those reasons, and then consider
the types of hard drive technologies best suited for solving your problem.
4 / need more space for my home/home-office/small-business computer. In this
case, you probably just need to store more documents, newer programs, or
more e-mail. Depending on your computer system, you have two or three
choices. First, you can upgrade the drive that’s currently your main, internal
hard drive. Second, you can add an additional hard drive internally, if your
computer has that capacity. Third, you can add an external hard drive using
the SCSI connector on the back of your Mac. In any of these cases, you’ll need
a basic IDE or SCSI hard drive, depending on the technology used in your Mac.
4 I need more space for professional images, desktop layout, or multimedia. This
midrange need means you require a faster drive than the average, but you
don’t exactly have a contract with Disney yet (that is, you’re not doing any
heavy-duty video or audio editing). In this case, you want to focus on the
available SCSI technology in your computer. If it has an internal hard drive
option, chances are it offers you fairly speedy SCSI connections inside the
machine. Determine exactly what type of SCSI that is, and then get a hard
drive to match.
Chapter 7 Hard Drives 181
4 / need space for editing digital video, digital audio, and crazy stuff like that. This
time maybe you do have a contract with Disney (or Pixar). Your Mac’s built-in
SCSI technologies may not suffice. Instead, you’re likely going to call in the
heavy guns — an upgrade card that features Fast, Wide, or Ultra SCSI
technologies. You’ll then need to get a drive to match it. Of course, you should
make sure your Mac doesn’t already feature some advanced SCSI before you
jump out there and spend money on an upgrade card.
4 - Fm really serious about high-end digital work. Look into an AV drive — not just a
high-speed drive, but a drive that actually only allows data to be written
sequentially. These drives act a little like tape recording mechanisms: They
lay every piece of data down right after the last bit. That way, the drive
doesn’t skip around to find more space. They’re also a bit tougher to work
with and can’t be used for anything other than audio and video production.
(These AV drives are less common these days, what with the faster speeds
available in general-purpose SCSI drives and RAID setups.)
^ You won’t believe my high-speed, huge<apacity needs. If you’re in this boat,
whether it’s for digital work or high-end serving needs, you might need to
consider a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) that can either speed
up your access, maintain the security of your data or a little of both. RAIDs
use special software to mirror data on a number of different high-speed disks
at once, enabling the disks to share the load necessary to speed up saves.
They’re also good for mirroring data on different drives, so that a single drive
failure can’t pull down your digital editing bay or your file server. This is
complex stuff, no doubt.
Hard drive technologies
After determining why you want to upgrade, the next step is figuring out how to
upgrade. You’ll need a quick primer, though, so you know exactly what to look for
when you’re shopping for your hard drive upgrade. (You may also need a new hard
drive interface card, especially if you’re looking to move up to some professional-
level artistry.) Not only do different Macs rely on different drive technologies, but
they can even rely on different levels within those technologies, such as the
increasingly powerful levels of the SCSI standard.
IDE technology
IDE stands for Integrated Drive Electronics, and it represents a speedy but less
expensive drive technology that Apple has only recently begun using. Seeing some
action in PowerPC-based Performa machines, IDE gained popularity by being
included in the Performa 6400, Power Macintosh 6500, and the early G3-level Power
Macintosh computers.
182 Part II > Perfomning the Upgrade
IDE is actually the most popular Intel-compatible drive technology, which makes
the drives a bit less expensive while allowing them to be comparable in speed to
standard SCSI drives. (SCSI, discussed in the next section, is the prevailing standard
in the Mac industry). A lot of Mac veterans scoff at IDE, but the derision is only
partly warranted. Having SCSI in a Mac is a definite advantage, because it’s a bit
easier to add SCSI devices than it is to add IDE devices, and you can add more SCSI
devices to a single Mac. SCSI also tends to be a bit quicker and is more extensible —
high-end SCSI technologies can offer very high transfer speeds.
Apple has mitigated most of these disadvantages, however. The IDE drives that ship
with Apple’s Macs can be a bit slower, but they’re usually tolerable. IDE expansion
in Macs is usually severely limited — most Macs that ship with IDE drives don’t
offer any additional drive bays. And nearly every Mac that’s ever shipped with an
IDE drive still offers a SCSI interface, so you can upgrade using SCSI drives. So it’s
not as scary as some folks think.
If you do need to buy an IDE drive as a replacement drive for your system (check
Table 7-1 later in this chapter to see if your Mac features IDE technology), you’ll
want to know a couple of tidbits about Apple’s implementation of IDE. In many
cases you’ll probably shop for an IDE drive from a retailer or mail-order house that
sells IDE drives for Intel-compatible PCs. If this is the case, you’ll need to watch out
for some of the ways Macs integrate IDE technology that differ slightly from the
Intel-compatible world:
> Apple’s internal IDE hard drives use the standard 40-pin ribbon connector
found in Intel-compatible computers.
> You can use IDE drives made by other companies as long as they support the
identify command, work at least at PIO mode 2 performance level, and have
write caching turned on. The most important distinction, though, is the drive
must support Logical Block Addressing (LBA). This allows IDE drives to get
past an inherent 520MB limit. Be sure to ask the retailer or the manufacturer
of the drive if these settings are all available in the particular drive you’re
considering — for the most part, they’re very common default settings.
-f Some early Mac systems that include IDE drives (Apple specifically mentions
the PowerBook 150, Macintosh 630 series, and Power Macintosh 5200/75 LC)
employ an internal IDE controller that may limit those machines to using the
first 2GB of their IDE drive (assuming you install one rated higher than 2GB).
Newer Macs shouldn’t suffer from this limit as long as the drive is otherwise
compatible. For instance, the Macintosh G3 series originally shipped with
4- and 6MB IDE options.
^ In the Power Macintosh G3 and below, Apple doesn’t specifically support any
of the high-speed IDE interface standards like Ultra-DMA. These technologies
increase the speed of IDE drives in Intel-compatibles, but Apple hasn’t written
any drivers to support these drives.
Chapter 7 4^ Hard Drives 183
4 Although some Macs do have enough internal expansion to support a second
IDE drive, carefully read the specifications and manual for your specific
machines. In some cases — the Power Macintosh 4400 and the G3 machines,
for example — the IDE bus is full, because the model has an IDE hard drive and
an IDE CD-ROM drive. (The Mac’s IDE interface can generally only handle two
devices.) On these systems, Apple usually includes an internal SCSI adapter
that enables you to add SCSI devices internally in any open drive bays.
Obviously, you could have some luck walking into an Intel-compatible-oriented
store and buying a bigger IDE drive for your Macintosh. The drives used in IDE-
capable Macs aren’t significantly different from those used in Intel-compatibles. My
one caveat: Choose a store with a good return policy. In most cases, those drives
aren’t tested in Macs, so any number of small issues could keep them from
performing optimally.
You may have heard of the unfortunately named master/slave configuration settings
that Intel-compatible users focus on when adding or upgrading IDE devices. No such
system exists in Macintosh machines that include IDE technology. Although mas-
ter/slave configurations allow two different IDE devices to coexist on the same bus
(one is set to be master and the other to slave, usually via a jumper or dip switch on
the drives themselves), Mac systems avoid this potential headache by only allowing
one IDE device per IDE bus. That's why Intel-compatibles can often support four IDE
devices (in machines rated for Extended IDE capabilities) whereas Macs only support
two. That means you work with fewer inexpensive IDE devices, but it also means you
get to avoid setting near-microscopic jumper sleeves on the drives' control pins, a
task most Mac loyalists like to leave in the Intel-compatible sphere where it belongs.
(Note: This is all true at the time of writing. However, I've heard rumors that the
newer Power Macintosh G3 models may have this capability. If your G3 has an inter-
nal IDE Zip drive or one was offered when you bought the G3, you may have the abil-
ity to support two IDE drives per bus. This may also be true in the future Power
Macintoch models.)
should you upgrade your internal IDE drive?
It sure can be tempting. Those IDE drives on sale in the computer stores are usually fifty to
a hundred bucks cheaper than their SCSI counterparts. However, the Mac just doesn't quite
support IDE like Intel-compatible PCs do. Plus, you're going to have to swap the IDE drive
that's already in your machine and toss it or sell it in the classifieds: Most Macs only support
one internal IDE hard drive, and any external hard drives have to be SCSI. What to do?
If you're going to be adding a significant amount of space — say you're going from 1GB of
storage to 6GB— then certainly consider choosing a new IDE drive and swapping it for your
existing internal IDE drive. Just be aware of all the issues surrounding such a move, like the
fact that early IDE-based Macs can only address 2GB on an IDE drive. (Swapping an internal
drive is covered later in this chapter.)
(continued)
184 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
(continued)
If the move isn't as significant, Td encourage you to look into an external SCSI drive for your
Mac, All Macs (barring the first few models in the mid-1980s and the iMac) support exter-
nal SCSI drives, and there are two advantages to this approach. First, you keep the same
startup drive that you've always had (and that Apple installed in your system), minimizing
your exposure to incompatibility problems. Second, an external drive is handy and portable,
giving you the option of grabbing the drive and connecting it to another Mac if your com-
puter ever fails or if you decide to upgrade to a new machine. The downside? The external
SCSI bus on most Macs operates at SMBps, which is slower than the internal SCSI bus in
many modern Macs. Fortunately, the speed difference is not terribly noticeable when com-
pared to Apple's IDE drive performance.
SCSI technology
The old standard in the Mac world is Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)
technology, which varies quite a bit from IDE In both its performance
characteristics and flexibility. It also varies somewhat from IDE in terms of price,
and SCSI support continues to be one reason Apple’s Macintosh systems are
generally priced at a premium over Intel-compatible machines that don’t Include
SCSI capabilities. Far be it for me to editorialize, but I certainly feel the presence of
SCSI is worth the extra cost.
Where IDE is limited to two internal drives (in Apple’s current implementation),
SCSI allows up to 7 devices to coexist on a single bus (chain of devices wired
together). In Macs with two SCSI buses, that means (theoretically) 14 devices could
coexist on the same Mac — a feat that IDE technology is unlikely to accomplish
during this millennium, if at all. Most Macs are limited to about 6 devices, however,
and SCSI headaches can be some of the worst troubleshooting for the typical Mac
users or administrator, so be warned.
According to Apple, the grand-poobah of SCSI was the Workgroup Server 95 (and
presumably the WGS 9150), capable of dealing with a full 20 SCSI devices attached to
it. Other Macs that can handle 14 include the Power Macintosh 8100/8150/9150.
Newer Macs like the 7300, 7500, 7600, 8600, and 9600 can handle a theoretical
14 as well, but space limitations keep the practical limit closer to 8 or so. Earlier Macs
with internal drive bays (like the Quadra and Centris series) actually used two SCSI
buses, but treated them like one, meaning you still couldn't have duplicate SCSI IDs.
As always, check your manual.
Chapter 7 4* Hard Drives 185
SCSI terms and basics
A number of terms are bandied about when discussing SCSI, so let’s get the basics
out of the way right now. Let me start, though, by saying that adding and
troubleshooting SCSI devices (covered extensively in Chapter 23) is certainly not
as difficult as some computing tasks can be. In fact, it makes perfect sense. You do
need something of a grasp on the terms and concepts, though, to make sure you
pull through a SCSI operation unscathed.
A SCSI bus is simply a data path for information to flow between the computer
and peripherals. For every SCSI bus, there’s a SCSI controller that’s responsible
for being a traffic cop for data on that bus. (Newer Macs feature dual-channel
asynchronous SCSI, enabling a single controller to run two buses, but that’s only
mildly interesting.)
Okay, now here’s a challenge for you. Pick up a book about Macs — any book about
Macs — and try to figure out what I’m about to tell you. If you didn’t have me, you’d
tear your hair out. (Actually, Macworld Mqc Secrets, 5th Edition by David Pogue and
Joseph Schorr [IDG Books Worldwide, 1998] does a pretty good job, and not just
because it’s another Mac title that would look good on your bookshelf right next to
this one.)
Each SCSI bus can have up to eight different SCSI IDs that are assigned to devices
on the bus. Those IDs are numbered 0 through 7. On any given bus, however, only
seven of the eight IDs are available, because the host Macintosh has to have one of
the IDs (usually number 7) on each bus. The Mac has to be a device on the bus,
after all, if it’s going to talk to other devices.
So, you have seven SCSI IDs available for devices. Remember, though, that
preexisting devices also rate a SCSI ID number, so your internal hard drive takes up
another ID number (often number 0). An internal CD-ROM drive takes another
number (usually number 3). Now, if your Mac has only one SCSI bus, you’re down to
five devices that you can install either internally or externally. If you have an
internal Zip drive, say “see ya” to another SCSI ID.
But if your Mac has two SCSI buses, one is probably an internal bus and the other is
an external bus. In this case, you need to be careful that you know not only what
the SCSI ID number is for a given device, but also what bus that particular device is
on. For instance, my Power Computing PowerCenter Pro not only has a regular
SCSI bus for connecting internal and external peripherals, it also has an Adaptec
UltraSCSI card, which offers high-speed 20MBps connections internally. This
creates a second bus, meaning another set of SCSI ID numbers 0 through 7. You
can see what that looks like in Figure 7-1.
186 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Figure 7-1: The Apple System Profiler shows two
different SCSI buses, each with its own set of SCSI ID
numbers.
SCSI ID numbers
When you install a new SCSI device, it has to have a new SCSI ID number. Amazing
problems (data integrity problems, crashes, freezes) can result when you assign the
same SCSI ID number to two different devices. That’s to be avoided at all costs.
Otherwise, not too many rules govern SCSI ID numbers.
Most external devices offer a small switch that enables you to change the SCSI ID
number (see Figure 7-2). External devices may also have dip switch settings or a
similar switch for choosing ID numbers.
Internal devices, on the other hand, usually rely on jumper settings. You place a
plastic sheath over two or more tiny metal posts on the drive to choose settings.
Jumpers are a barrel of laughs to play with, but important to know about if you plan
to add a second drive to your Mac. Most SCSI drives come from the factory set to
SCSI ID 0. However, that’s no good if you’re adding a second drive, because the
original drive that shipped with your Mac is set to SCSI ID 0. You’ll have to change
the new drive’s number.
In case you’re wondering, there isn’t much method to choosing SCSI IDs.
Technically, the higher the SCSI ID, the higher the priority — but that doesn’t
really matter often, because the Macintosh itself is the only device that really has
priority over the others. That said, if you have trouble with a SCSI drive showing up,
mounting, or working as a startup disk, you might try setting it to a higher SCSI ID —
or any different SCSI ID at all — and see if that changes things. (I’ll cover SCSI
troubleshooting extensively in Chapter 23. And I mean pages and pages worth!)
Chapter 7 > Hard Drives 187
Figure 7-2: SCSI IDs are usually simple to set on external devices.
Types of SCSI
The second major concern when you want to add a SCSI device is the exact nature
of the SCSI connections you have available in your Mac. These come down to the
different types of SCSI technology that have been developed over the years to
improve — you guessed it — the speed of the SCSI connection. I’ll start, though, by
complaining about how confusing this can all be.
In the SCSI world, there have been three standards: SCSI (or SCSI-1), SCSI-2 and
SCSI-3. These names and numbers are, for the most part, completely irrelevant to
our lives. The standards are only given names, according to rumor, so that in-the-
know computer scientists can laugh at the rest of us.
More important are the SCSI transfer protocols, which coincide somewhat with the
SCSI standards. It may help to know that SCSI-1 was ratified in 1985, SCSI-2 in 1990
and SCSl-3 is still a developing standard (at this writing) but seems intended only to
extend the SCSI-2 standard, not replace it. The standards, then, are only interesting
as dates in time. What you’ll hear more often are references to the transfer
protocols, as outlined here:
4- SCSI. Although people use the word SCSI to mean just about any sort of SCSI
device (regardless of its standards or speeds), it’s probably most useful to
think of SCSI as “basic SCSI,” or the protocol that was part of the SCSI-1
standard. In this standard, data is transferred along 8-bit wide data paths at
about SMB per second. In this case, the SCSI bus speed is 5MHz.
188 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
4 Fast SCSI or Fast SCSI-2. Part of the SCSI-2 specification, Fast SCSI is a transfer
protocol that doubles the speed of basic SCSI to lOMHz, still using an 8-bit
path. That results in a maximum throughput of 10MB per second.
4 Wide SCSI or Wide SCSI-2. Wide SCSI interfaces use a 16-bit bus at 5MHz to
transfer data. This also results in a maximum throughput of 10MB per second,
but it also means that Wide SCSI buses can support up to 16 devices per bus
(instead of the regular 8 devices). Wide SCSI is usually internal only, and
requires a special 68-pin cable to communicate with Wide SCSI devices. (Many
Wide SCSI cards also feature a 50-pin or 25-pin external connector for adding
slower external SCSI devices to the bus.)
4 Fast/Wide SCSI or Fast/Wide SCSI-2. Put these two SCSI-2 technologies
together and you get a 16-bit bus running at lOMHz. That results in maximum
transfers of 20MBps, along with support for 16 devices.
4 Ultra SCSI or Ultra SCSI-3. Part of the emerging SCSI-3 standard, Ultra SCSI
uses an 8-bit bus at 20MHz for a maximum transfer rate of 20MBps.
4 Ultra/Wide SCSI or Ultra/Wide SCSI-3. As you might guess, this is a 20MHz,
16-bit SCSI bus capable of data transfers up to 40MBps and support for 16
devices. This also requires a 68-pin cable for the highest-speed connections.
Technically, SCSI interfaces and drives should be backward compatible. That is, a
fast drive can plug into a slow interface and run at the slower speed, and, by the
same token, a slow drive could also be plugged into a fast SCSI interface and
continue to work. In practice, this seems to be generally true, although the early
SCSI-1 devices were reportedly quite a mess (you’re probably better off shying
away from drives and SCSI interfaces built before the late 1980s). Of course, those
drives tend to be small in capacity and cumbersome in the amount of space they
take up.
What is of interest here is buying the right drive for your Mac’s SCSI interface — or,
if you’re not happy with its built-in capabilities, maybe you want to add an upgrade
card for better SCSI performance and for the ability to support faster drives. If
you’re not sure what SCSI technology your Mac offers, take a look at Table 7-1 later
in this chapter.
SCSI cables and connections
You may already have gathered that SCSI, while high speed and only getting faster,
can also be a bit temperamental. Along with Postscript font handling, many an avid
Mac fan thinks of the SCSI chain as the dark side of a Mac’s personality. It’s here
where even the slightest Inequities can result in poor or absolutely zero
performance.
Chapter 7 Hard Drives ] 09
FireWire: Mega, Super, Ultra SCSI
Even as huge drives based on the Ultra/Wide SCSI standard spew megabytes-per-second of
recorded audio and video in production studios everywhere, it's still not enough. According
to a recent interview I read featuring George Lucas of Star Wars fame, he expects that the
last movie in the second trilogy of Star Wars films will be shot completely digitally- no
actual film will be used. Unfortunately, says Lucas, the technology hasn't been invented
quite yet to make that happen. It will be, though.
FireWire, which is less glamorously known as Serial SCSI, is the next step in SCSI technology
that may help Mr. Lucas's quest. As the SCSI bus speeds up beyond 20MHz, complexities
make it more practical to use serial technology (where data bits are sent one at a time)
instead of parallel technology (where data bits are sent 8 or 16 at a time, hence 8-bit and
16-bit buses of traditional SCSI). Although it seems like a step backward, it isn't because the
speed of a serial bus could reach beyond l,OOOMHz and into the gigahertz (GHz) range.
Meanwhile, parallel technology is having trouble getting past 20MHz.
FireWire is also less complex, requiring a simple 6-pin connector to operate, and it's much
smarter about termination issues, which tend to be the bane of current SCSI connections.
Already FireWire is emerging not just as a hard drive technology, but as a popular way to
connect digital cameras to computers for transferring images. Eventually, perhaps, we'll
reach throughput speeds of SOMBps, lOOMBps, or something greater for these connections
to finally quench the cinematographic desires of Mr. Lucas.
The biggest factors for SCSI involve the cabling used and the need for termination.
Both of these can contribute to interference on the line that can ultimately bog
down performance.
First, SCSI cables need to be high quality, offering the proper shielding and
components. Apple points out in their Tech Info Library (located at http : / /
til .info, appl e . com) that poor quality cables are often responsible for
seemingly mysterious SCSI problems.
Cable length is also an issue. Even though you can daisy chain SCSI devices, the
overall length of a SCSI chain should never exceed 20 feet, and a chain longer than
10 feet can be problematic. For this reason, cable lengths of 12 to 24 inches are
recommended between devices, with 6 feet being the absolute maximum for most
devices (some devices simply won’t work with cables over 24 inches long). If you
need a SCSI device (for example, a scanner) to be placed farther away from your
Mac than that, you should consider placing another Mac closer to it or opting for a
network-based scanner that’s connected by technology such as Ethernet.
Also, take note whenever you buy cabling for your SCSI devices: The external
connector on your Mac uses a 25-pin connection, but many SCSI devices use the
standard (called Centronics) 50-pin connector. In some cases, you may need to buy
190 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
an adapter cable so you can hook a device to your external SCSI connector. After
that, most devices can be daisy chained using 50-pin to 50-pin cables. But don’t take
my word for it — Iomega Zip and Jaz drives, for instance, opt for 25-pin cables.
Check your devices closely to ensure you get the right cable and/or adapter.
SCSI termination
After you’ve connected your drives, you’ll need termination. Because SCSI is
capable of daisy chaining devices, the SCSI bus actually works a bit like a network,
with address numbers (the SCSI IDs) allowing devices to communicate with the
Macintosh itself. But the SCSI bus also needs to know its limits. When data gets to
one of the ends of a SCSI chain, it “bounces” back, causing interference. Special
resistors, called terminators, prevent this problem. The last device in a SCSI chain
needs to be terminated; instead of having a cable that connects it to another
device, a special terminator is plugged into (or activated) within the device so that
data doesn’t try to go further downline (see Figure 7-3).
Figure 7-3: A SCSI terminator keeps stray data bits from causing
interference on the line.
SCSI termination can also be important at different points in the connection. For
most chains, the bus should be terminated at both ends. The exception is a chain
that’s less than 18 inches or so In length. (And it should probably still be
terminated, just to be safe.)
chapter 7 -f Hard Drives 191
For most of Mac users, that means terminating the last device in the external chain
of SCSI devices. For many Macs, the internal drive acts as the first termination
point, and the last external device is the second. If your SCSI chain reaches beyond
10 feet, adding a third terminator at about the 10-foot point can be useful if (and
only if) you’re having SCSI-related errors. If you’re installing a second internal drive,
there’s a good chance you’ll need to play with the termination settings, because
your current internal drive is terminated. If you can add the internal drive in the
middle of the internal SCSI chain, so much the better.
You should know a few exceptions to these rules. The Mac Plus has no internal
termination (as it has no internal drive) so the //rsT external SCSI device in the chain
should be terminated, as should the last (but only terminate the drive once if it’s
your only SCSI device). The Mac Ilfx requires a bizarre 200-ohm terminator that is
different from every other Mac’s and almost every other device (it’s also used for
connecting hard drives to Apple LaserWriter Ilf/llg and LaserWriter Pro 630
printers). This special terminator is black (when Apple makes it) to differentiate it
from regular external terminators, which are traditionally gray.
Aside from knowing the color, you’ll need to figure out what these terminators look
like and how they work. SCSI terminators come in three basic flavors:
^ Built-in terminators. These terminators are resistors built into or connected
directly to the SCSI device. Generally used for internal devices, they can either
be removed or switched off when another device is added to the SCSI chain.
Read your documentation carefully though, as these terminators can be
damaging if incorrectly reinstalled.
> External terminator plugs. These terminators plug into the cabling
connectors on your external SCSI devices, or between the SCSI cable and a
particular device’s SCSI connector.
^ Logic board terminators. These often look like memory modules. They plug
into the SCSI port on the Macintosh when no internal hard drive is present.
Otherwise, the hard drive’s internal terminator is sufficient.
Good termination of the SCSI bus can be the difference between a no-problem
upgrade and error after error. In that spirit, let me iterate and reiterate a few
cautionary notes:
4 Don’t terminate devices twice. This can be an easy mistake to make on a
device that features both built-in termination and a second SCSI connector. If
you terminate at the connector while internal termination is active, you could
have big problems. You could damage devices or lose data.
4 Be aware that some devices offer an automatic or internal termination that
can sometimes be controlled by software. Read your hard drive’s manual
carefully to make sure it doesn’t offer some unique termination system.
192 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
4 Check the manual on your Mac before installing a SCSI device that sends
termination power (TERMPWR) to the SCSI bus. Some modern Macs don’t like
that at all.
4 Look into drives and devices that offer active termination. This means the
device will decide on its own whether or not termination is necessary under
the circumstance. Often these devices (if they’re designed to be installed
externally) also feature an LED or readout that tells you what its termination
decision was. If you’re not happy with its decision, you can discipline it as
necessary.
Mac books dedicate untold pages to SCSI problems and troubleshooting -and this
one is no exception. Check Chapter 23 for starters, and then flip through the rest of
the troubleshooting chapters in Part III for advice on troubleshooting all sorts of SCSI
devices.
Add a Hard Drive
If you’re ready to add some serious storage space to your Mac, a hard drive is a
good bet. These days a hard drive is a cheap, effective and fast way to add
gigabytes and gigabytes of storage. Although removable media and recordable CDs
are okay for backup and trading data, nothing beats a high-speed hard drive for
day-to-day data retrieval.
Which brings you to your first issue: How fast of a hard drive can your Mac handle?
Specifically, you’re interested in knowing the drive technology you’ll want to use for
your new drive (IDE or SCSI) and, if it’s a SCSI connection, what transfer technology
it uses (Fast SCSI, Wide SCSI, Ultra SCSI, and so on). Armed with this knowledge,
you’ll have a better idea of which drive to buy.
And you’ll want to decide whether to upgrade internally or externally. If you’ve
been reading this chapter from the beginning, you may already be aware of these
advantages and disadvantages:
4 External. External drives communicate more slowly with your Mac than do
internal drives most of the time (very early Macs had similar speeds both
internally and externally). External drives are easy to install, portable, and
usually have cool external cases (see Figure 7-4).
chapter 7 > Hard Drives ] Q3
Figure 7-4: An external hard drive will have its own casing, power
cable, and obvious SCSI connectors and SCSI ID controls.
4- Internal. Internal drives can be faster, can use advanced SCSI technologies,
and don’t add another box to your computer setup. You’ll need an extra drive
bay in your Mac, though, and internal drives can be much tougher to add,
usually requiring a screwdriver, good lighting and, in some cases, plenty of
patience. In addition, internal drives are naked compared to external drives,
showing up without plastic cases and LED indicators.
Evangelista tip: External hard drives
What if you feel like adding an internal drive, but you want an enclosure for your old inter-
nal drive so that it can live a second life as an external drive? Well, you can call one of those
hard drive specialists in the marketplace ads in the back of Macworld, but there's another
way. Here's a hint from Kevin Patfield, one of the corp of elite Evangelistas out there on the
Internet who give solid advice to Mac users:
"This one's pretty obvious, yet I still see people asking about it. The question usually goes
something like this: 'Where's the best place to buy an enclosure for a hard disk? I've just
installed a new quintillion gigabyte internal in my Mac and I'd like to use my old quadrillion
gigabyte drive as an external.' The answer is to first buy an external drive and swap it with
the original internal drive. This is almost always cheaper than buying an internal drive and
an enclosure. It has an additional advantage in that you can easily back up everything onto
your new drive before you even reach for a screwdriver."
(continued)
194 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
(continued)
One caveat is that not all internal drives will fit in external enclosures. When you buy the
external drive enclosure, ask the vendor or manufacturer if ifs designed to accept a stan-
dard 3.5" hard drive from your Mac. If the vendor knows Macs and Mac upgrading, you
should be able to get a straight answer to this question.
Also, realize that the drive in your Mac is often an Apple-specific drive that uses Apple's hard
disk driver software. Replacing it with another drive isn't impossible, but it does add
another layer of complexity, requiring you to update the driver software without help from
Apple's Mac OS installation CDs, for instance. You may also have trouble getting Apple's
included utilities (such as Disk First Aid) to troubleshoot the drive, so you'll need to have
the drive's own utilities handy at all times. (Make sure you have a backup diskette or
bootable CD-ROM that includes those utilities.)
What hard drive should you buy?
The short answer: You’ll probably want to buy a Fast SCSI drive for upgrading most
Macs in most situations. If you’re looking at a need for serious high-speed data
transfers, you might want an Ultra/Wide SCSI card and an Ultra/Wide SCSI drive to
go with it. If you’re replacing an internal drive, you’ll need a new drive that uses the
same technology (IDE or SCSI) as the old drive. If you want an external drive, it’s
probably going to be a plain SCSI model, unless you buy a special upgrade card that
enables you to hook up an external Wide SCSI drive.
The longer answer: When you go on your quest for a hard drive, you’ll need to be
armed with a little information. First, does your Mac accept IDE hard drives, SCSI
hard drives, or both? If you’ll be upgrading externally, you need a SCSI drive, and
most likely you can get away with a slower drive — most Macs’ SCSI ports still
transfer data at SCSI-1 speeds. New Macs are an exception, especially those that
feature SCSI on an expansion card instead of built into the motherboard. Check
your manual; your SCSI card may transfer data externally at Fast SCSI or even
Ultra/Wide SCSI speeds, so you’ll want to buy a hard drive to match. Remember,
any sort of Wide SCSI requires a 64-pin connector.
The fact that you need this information can only mean one thing — it’s chart time.
Table 7-1 has the details about the various Mac models and the info you need to
upgrade your hard drive, including whether or not there’s room for an internal hard
drive and what technology the Mac’s main drive uses. Because all Macs (aside from
the first two) offer a 5MBps SCSI port externally, that information isn’t included in
the chart.
chapter 7 > Hard Drives 195
The iMac, Apple's recently announced all-in-one consumer Macintosh, doesn't sup-
port any sort of external SCSI. Other consumer Mac models may follow suit in the
future.
Table 7-1
Hard Drive Upgrade Paths for Major Mac OS Models
Model
Main Drive
Available
Bays?
Internal SCSI Speed
Mac 128, 512, Plus
None
No
N/AN/A
Mac Classic series (includes,
SE, Plus, and so on)
SCSI
No
5MBps
Mac 11 series. Quadra 700
SCSI
No
5MBps
LC series.C/Q605, Performa
400 series
SCSI
No
5MBps
Mac livi, llvx, Q/C650, 0
Performa 600, WGS70;
PM 7100, WGS715
SCSI
5.25"'
5MBps
C/Q610, 660AV, PM6100,
Performa 6100 series
SCSI
5.25"’
5MBps
Q630, Performa 630, LC 630,
6200, 6300 series
IDE
No
N/A
Q800, 840AV, PM 8100,
WGS8150
SCSI
5.25"', 3.5"
5MBps
Q900/950, WGS 90, PM
9500; WGS 9150
SCSI
5.25"', two 3.5"
lOMBps
Performa 6400, PM 6500
IDP
5.25"
5MBps
LC/Performa 500 series; MacTV SCSP
No
5MBps
Performa/PM 5200/5300
IDE
No
N/A
PM 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600,
WGS 7250/7350, 8500
SCSI
3.5"^
lOMBps
G3 Desktop, G3 Desktop
Server
IDE^
3.5"^
5MBps
PM 8600, 9600
SCSI
Three 5.25"*
lOMBps
G3 Minitower; G3
IDE^
Three 5.25""
5MBps
Minitower Server
(continued)
196 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Table 7-1 (continued)
Model
Main Drive
Available
Bays?
Internal SCSI Speed
Power Computing
Low-profile systems
SCSI
3.5"'X5)
See below
Desktop systems
SCSI
5.25", 3.5"’X5)
See below
Minitower systems
SCSI
two 5.25",
See below
3.5" ’X5)
PowerCurve, PowerBase;
PowerCenter
SCSI
See cases above
5MBps
Power, PowerWave,
PowerTower
SCSI
See cases above
lOMBps
PowerCenter Pro
SCSI
See cases above
20MBps
Motorola
Desktop systems
SCSI
Varies
Varies
Minitower systems
SCSI
Varies
Varies
UMAX
c500 series
IDE
None
N/A
c600 series
IDE^
Two 5.25",
two 3.5"
5MBps
j700 series
SCSI
5.25", 3.5"
lOMBps
s900 series
SCSI
5.25", three 3.5"
lOMBps
1 One 5.25'' bay filled by factory CD-ROM on certain models.
2 Internal expansion bays are prewired for SCSI devices.
3 IDE on 580 series models.
4 One available bay is filled by a factory Zip drive on certain models.
5 Power Computing machines allow two half-height drives to fit in each full-height bay, so only half of the listed
bay may be available, depending on configuration. (Nearly all Power Computing machines can accept an
additional 3.5" SCSI hard drive, assuming a power connector is available.)
Chapter 7 Hard Drives 197
If you plan to add a drive to your Mac (instead of simply replacing the old drive)
you’ll probably need to buy a SCSI drive, even if your Mac uses IDE technology. In
every case I’ve encountered, a Mac using IDE features an internal SCSI connection
for additional drives if that model supports additional internal drives. (Check your
Mac’s manual.) And, as always, external drives are SCSI every time.
So, in just about every Mac out there, you’ll probably be upgrading with a SCSI
drive, and, unless your Mac has a special Ultra/Wide SCSI card or a similar upgrade,
you’ll most likely be fine if you buy a Fast SCSI hard drive. (They’re as cheap as any
other drive.) Focus on the 50-pin connector, even for an Internal drive. That’ll most
likely work in nearly any Mac you could get your hands on.
If you own a G3 Macintosh or a UMAX S900 (among a few others), you might have a
68-pin UltraAVide card — it’s a popular build-your-own upgrade for these machines.
Check your documentation. If you do have one of these cards, you’ll likely want to
buy a higher-end Wide SCSI drive for better performance.
Read the documentation that came with your Ultra/Wide SCSI card carefully. Some of
these cards offer 68-pin ports externally as well, yet they sometimes can't handle an
actual external device because of wiring limitations. The original G3 Ultra/Wide
upgrade card is an example of one of these cards that limits you to internal Wide SCSI
upgrades.
Finally, owners of clone machines that use PC-style cases should be warned of one
other caveat: Just because you have a free drive bay doesn’t necessarily mean
you’ll have a SCSI connector and/or a power cable that can be used for that drive
bay. However, you can buy a power connector splitter from your local computer
store that will increase the number of peripherals you can connect. (Plus, you
should be able to get SCSI ribbon cables that offer more connectors, as long as you
limit your SCSI IDs to the number available to your Mac.) You’ll want to check the
rating on your power supply before adding too many power splitters, though, to
make sure you’re not adding more of a power drain than your Mac can handle.
Do you need a new SCSI card?
In most cases, you don’t need any new expansion cards for your Mac. If it has an
available internal drive bay, you should also have an available internal SCSI
connector. Even if you don’t have an available drive bay, you can always hook up an
external SCSI drive, if you have any SCSI ID numbers left on your SCSI bus. With
most Mac models, you should have an available SCSI ID if you don’t have seven SCSI
devices, including internal drives, already hooked up.
Tip If you do have a full SCSI bus, or if you're interested in a high-speed SCSI connection,
^ you should look into a SCSI expansion card.
198 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
You can find SCSI cards for most Macs, including versions for NuBus and PCI
expansion slots. (PDS cards are more rare, but you’ll find them through specialty
shops and Macintosh classified/used sources.) Look for a card that offers the level
of SCSI performance that you’re interested in — Fast, Past/Wide, Ultra, and so on.
Once you’ve got the card, you shouldn’t have much trouble installing it. The
process is the same as for almost any upgrade card:
1. Shut down your Mac and electrically ground yourself.
2. Open the Mac’s case and locate an empty expansion slot. (Visually inspect it
to ensure it’s the right type of slot for your card.)
3. Remove the screw and metal dust plate that covers the hole in back of the
case for the slot you’ll be using.
4. Position the card so that its interface is directly over the slot. If it’s a NuBus
card, make sure the card’s housing fits over the NuBus slot on the logic board.
If it’s a PDS or a PCI card, make sure the card’s connector fits snugly in the
slot.
5. Press down lightly and uniformly on the top corners of the expansion card
until it’s firmly installed in the slot.
Be sure the card is fully installed in the slot. If one end is higher than the other, parts
of the connector may not be making proper contact, and the card will fail to work.
6. Attach the SCSI cable. The red line on the SCSI cable should line up with the
left side of the SCSI connector on the card itself (see Figure 7-5).
Figure 7-5: You’ll need to hook the SCSI cable up to the SCSI card
correctly so you can install additional SCSI devices.
Chapter 7 ^ Hard Drives ] Q9
7. Try restarting your Mac while the case is still off and see if the card is
recognized. You may need to install a software driver or extension that
enables you to control the card.
On ihe^
coy-
Upgrading and installing a hard drive
Whether or not you’ve installed a new SCSI card, you may be itching to create more
storage space by adding an internal hard drive to your Mac’s case. It’s easy enough
to do, as long as you have everything you need to get started. First, you’ll need to
make sure your Mac is ready for the upgrade, and that includes considering some
important SCSI issues. If you’re just planning to replace your older drive, you’ll
want to take out your old drive.
Before you install the drive
You should know about a few important issues before you remove or install a hard
drive. The first two focus on SCSI, but note that the second two are applicable to
IDE and SCSI. Here are some preliminaries:
^ Using a program like the Apple System Profiler or any SCSI probing software
that comes with your new SCSI drive, check to see what SCSI ID numbers are
available in your Macintosh. If you’ll be replacing the internal drive, its
number is likely SCSI ID 0. Otherwise, you’ll want to pick an available number
for this additional drive. (Actually, you should probably make note of two or
three SCSI ID numbers that are available, just in case you run into big
problems that make it difficult to get back into the System Profiler program.)
> Shut down your Mac, ground yourself, open the case and take a look inside.
Make sure the Mac has a free drive bay for your installation. Also make sure a
SCSI connection (usually in the middle of the SCSI ribbon cable) and a free
power connector are available.
^ Also make a visual confirmation that the bay you have is the correct size for
your drive. A standard 3.5” drive can fit in any available bay (unless it’s a
PowerBook’s drive bay), but a 5.25” drive needs a 5.25” bay. (If you have a 3.5”
drive destined for a 5.25” bay, you’ll need to get an adapter or mounting kit for
the drive.)
Take a look at how your Mac is designed for installation of the drive. Notice,
for instance, the sort of mechanism that’s used to slide the drive in and out of
its bay. You’ll need this sort of kit (it may be included with your drive or
available from a Macintosh dealer) to complete the upgrade. Some drives
simply screw into a drive cage inside the machine. Others require more
Use the Apple System Profiler to check for the presence of the card — you should find that
installing a SCSI upgrade card created a new SCSI bus (probably SCSI bus 1 or 2). Notice
also the bus is completely empty, except for the Macintosh, which is automatically
assigned SCSI ID 7. The Apple System Profiler is installed with Mac OS 8.0 and above, or
you can use the link on the CD-ROM to download it from Apple's Internet servers.
200 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
elaborate plastic or metal guides or rails (see Figure 7-6). If you have trouble
finding an appropriate mounting kit, try Proline Distribution
(WWW . prol i ne . com) or an online Mac-oriented store.
Figure 7-6: Many Macs take a high-end approach to hard drive
mounting hardware. One type is released by pressing down on a
plastic tab, and then sliding the drive fonA/ard.
If you're replacing your older, main startup drive with a new one, don't forget that the
new drive is going to need a Mac OS System Folder on it so that it can load the Mac
OS for you once you have it installed. Of course, you can also use a Mac OS or utili-
ties CD-ROM to boot your system, but be sure you have the hard drive utilities you
need handy (on floppy disk or bootable CD-ROM) so you can use them to format and
partition the drive.
Remove the old drive
Removing an older hard drive so you can install a newer one is a fairly simple
process. If you don’t plan to use the old drive anymore, you can even use the same
hardware to install your new drive. Here’s the procedure:
1. Shut down your Mac, unplug it, ground yourself, and remove the case.
2. Find the original hard drive and take a look at the type of guide attached to
the drive bay.
3. Remove the SCSI (or IDE) cable and the power connector from the back of the
drive (see Figure 7-7). Always grab the connector and pull — don’t yank on the
cables or wires.
Chapter 7 4 Hard Drives 201
Figure 7-7: Remove the connectors gently from the drive. Note
their orientation for installation of the new drive.
4. If necessary, unscrew any retaining screws holding the drive to its drive bay
(quick-release plastic drive rails won’t have any screws to worry about.)
5. Release the drive from its drive bay and slide it out of the bay. Depending on
your Mac model, you may find that sliding the drive out of the front of its bay is
easier, even if the cables are hooked up at the back of the bay (see Figure 7-8).
Figure 7-8: Once the drive is unfettered, slide it straight out of
its bay.
202 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
There’s really nothing else to do. If you are replacing an old drive with a new one,
remove the guide rails from the drive and attach them to the new drive. (You may
have trouble getting them to fit, in which case you should contact the vendor or
manufacturer to see if they have a kit for your particular Mac model.)
SCSI installation
Installing a SCSI drive is basically the reverse of removing one, except you’ll need to
worry a bit about the drive’s SCSI ID and its termination. Here are the rules:
> If you removed your original SCSI drive, you’ll need to make sure your new
drive is terminated (it may be auto-terminating or it may require an additional
step — check your drive’s manual). You probably won't have to change the
SCSI ID on the drive, because most internal SCSI drives come set to SCSI ID 0.
(You should still double-check, though.)
♦ If you didn’t remove your old drive, make sure you’re installing your drive
in the middle of the SCSI ribbon cable. If you are, termination shouldn’t be
necessary, so make sure your drive isn't terminated (check the drive’s manual
for termination details). You will need to set a unique SCSI ID, probably using
jumpers (see Figure 7-9).
Figure 7-9: You'll probably have to check the drive's manual
carefully for the jumper settings that enable you to change SCSI ID
numbers.
Chapter 7 ^ Hard Drives 203
Install the correct rails. You’ll need to attach your new drive to a drive bay,
either by screwing it into place (this is more likely on non-Apple machines) or
getting some guide rails that help you slide the drive into place. If the latter’s
the case, get the proper installation kit for your Mac, and then screw it onto
the drive.
Connecting the drive
Finally, you’re ready to install the SCSI or IDE drive. This will most likely be anti-
climactic, because it’s not tough once you’ve got everything set correctly:
1. Make sure your Mac is shut down, unplugged, and you’re electrically
grounded. Remove the Mac’s case.
2. Slide the new drive into an available drive bay. Note: There’s usually an upside
and downside for the drive. It’s unlikely to cause a problem from being
installed upside down, though it’ll probably be tough to install it upside down
if your Mac uses guide rails. But take a glance at your manual and make sure
you have the drive facing the correct direction, just to be sure you’re
installing it correctly. Also, the drive should be installed with its SCSI or IDE
interface and power ports facing the interface and power cables. On some
Macs the cables are actually near the front of the drive bay — and therefore
near the front of the case — instead of at the back of the drive bay.
3. Connect the SCSI or IDE cable to the drive. Make sure you orient the cable
correctly, with the red stripe on the SCSI or IDE cable lining up with the
leftmost Pin 1 on the connector.
4. Connect the power wires to the drive. They can only be installed in one
direction, so if you have trouble plugging the connector into the drive, try
flipping it over.
5. Make sure the drive is firmly seated in its bay and reinstall any protective
metal plates that cover the drive bay.
You can test the drive with the Mac’s case still off, but shut your Mac down again
and replace the case once you’re sure everything is working.
Working with the new drive
If you’re lucky, you were able to get a hard drive that came preformatted for
Macintosh computers. Once it boots up and mounts, or appears on your Mac’s
desktop, you can simply double-click its icon and start using it (there may even be
some software utilities already on the drive). Check your manual to determine
whether your drive was preformatted for Macintosh.
If the drive isn’t Mac-formatted, you may be asked by your Mac if you want to erase
the disk. This formats it for the first time — you can click OK if you’re absolutely
sure the dialog box is referring to the new drive. The Format menu item should give
you a clue by showing you the capacity of the drive. Click Cancel if you’d prefer to
run some other formatting or hard drive utility software.
204 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Getting info off the older drive
If you're upgrading your system by replacing your older drive, you may be concerned about
transferring data between the two drives. After all, on many Macs there's only room for one
internal drive. What are your options?
The best plan is to back up the data from the original drive to an Iomega Jaz cartridge, a
recordable CD, or something similar. Copy all the data you need to one of these GB-sized
solutions, and then copy it all back to the new drive once everything is installed. If you don't
have such a removable drive and you can't borrow or rent one, you have another interest-
ing solution.
If your Mac has a built-in CD-ROM drive, use this sneaky little tactic to solve this problem.
Just unhook your CD-ROM drive and uninstall it, and then reinstall your older hard drive in
the CD-ROM drive's place. You don't really need to install the guide rails and get it all to fit
perfectly- just make sure the drive won't fall, get liquid spilled on it, or get knocked around,
and then hook up the SCSI or IDE cable and power connector. Fire up your Mac and copy
data between the two drives. Immediately afterward, disconnect the drive and reconnect
the CD-ROM drive. (Note that this sort of configuration is never a long-term solution.)
If you're using SCSI drives, one additional word of caution — don't forget to choose an avail-
able SCSI ID for the older drive, as it's not the main disk (ID 0) anymore. If you're tem-
porarily replacing the internal CD-ROM, ID 3 should be available.
Most likely your new drive came with drive utilities to help you get up and on your
way, such as Apple’s Drive Setup (for Apple-branded hard drives), Silverlining, or
the FWB Toolkit for third-party drives. Such a program will enable you to set all
sorts of parameters, including the number of partitions (virtual hard drives) you’re
going to create, their capacities and whether or not they’ll support other computer
formats (like Apple 11 ProDOS or Intel-compatible DOS formats).
If you don’t have much experience formatting and partitioning hard drives, you
might want to flip to Chapter 23 and read about your options.
Adding a RAID
If you have serious multimedia or server storage needs, a single hard drive — even
a large, fast, wide, and rather handsome SCSI drive — may not be enough. Instead,
you may be ripe for a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives or a RAID.
There are two basic reasons to have a RAID: speed and data integrity. Using two or
more drives, RAID software is capable of writing data in parallel over two different
SCSI buses, which is reason number one to have a second SCSI card or a dual-
channel Mac such as a Quadra 900/950 or a Power Mac 8600 or 9600. Writing data
this way — it’s called data striping — allows you to store data at twice the rate of a
single SCSI drive. For speed, RAlDs are generally used by graphics, publishing,
scientific, and film professionals.
Chapter 7 Hard Drives 205
You can also set up a RAID to offer data mirroring, which simply means the software
writes every file to each individual drive at the same time. If one drive goes down or
breaks, the other is there as a backup. Data mirroring is an obvious favorite for
servers, especially Web commerce servers or workgroup servers that have a
mission-critical responsibility to keep a company or organization running.
Either way, the RAID appears on your desktop as a single drive, even though you’ll
need two drives or more to create it. You’ll also need to buy Ultra/Wide or
Fast/Wide drives; for the most part, it’s pointless to set up a RAID with slow drives.
After all, you want to get speeds faster than are currently available from the fastest
SCSI-3 drives by using two or more in tandem.
Setting up RAID
RAID software offers different levels that correspond to the type of RAID you’ll be
creating. RAID level 0 is data striping. RAID level 1 is data mirroring, and RAID levels
2 through 5 are combinations of the two, either to speed up data mirroring or add
more physical drives to increase the speed or data integrity.
If you don’t already have RAID software (Apple includes AppIeRAID or SoftRAID on
WorkGroup Server systems and in other server software bundles they sell), you’ll
need to get some. An example of RAID software is Conley’s SoftRAID, driver
software that enables you to take two or more high-speed drives and use them for
data striping or mirroring. You may also need a second SCSI card (or a RAID-specific
SCSI card) for your system, such as Initio’s Miles card (www .initio, com), which
includes SoftRAID (see Figure 7-10).
Figure 7-10: SoftRAID software makes it easy to install and monitor
a RAID for high-speed and data-sensitive operations.
206 Part II -f Performing the Upgrade
Using SoftRAlD, you can set up flexible RAID situations, using drives on separate
SCSI buses or on the same bus. The process is straightforward: You install new
drivers for each physical hard drive, and then you (usually) initialize the drive.
With that accomplished, you create partitions on the drives that you can use for
mirroring or striping other paritions. Finally, you tell SoftRAID which partition is for
what purpose, and then let it do its work.
As much as it seems like it, RAIDs really aren't a good substitute for a backup system.
For one, a RAID writes the same data to both drives (when mirroring), including data
you might not want written to both drives -for example, a virus. Also, a catastrophic
system error, configuration problem, or a partially saved document appears on both
drives. And one drive in a RAID will rarely enable you to reload an earlier version of
something you've deleted. You'll need a solid backup strategy for your system as well
as a RAID for total data security.
Summary
♦ You’ve got two different types of hard drive technology in the Mac-compatible
world: IDE and SCSI. Although Macs have historically used SCSI, IDE is
becoming popular as a low-cost alternative. Because IDE is the Intel-
compatible standard, it’s easier to find and usually cheaper than comparable
SCSI drives. SCSI technology is much more flexible, so all Macs still
incorporate some SCSI connections, even if their main drives are IDE-based.
^ SCSI can be both amazing and annoying at the same time. There’s a lot to
know about the technology to connect a drive successfully, including how the
SCSI ID numbering system works, how SCSI devices are connected, and how to
properly terminate a chain of SCSI devices. You may also want to know the
different types of SCSI technology so you can get the best one (or fastest one)
that suits your needs.
♦ Before you can buy the drive, though, you’ll need to know what your Mac can
handle. This chapter’s chart shows you the type of technology your Mac’s
main drive uses, what other drive technologies are available to you, and
whether you’ll be able to add an internal drive.
♦ Finally, it’s on to adding the drive. Electrically ground yourself, follow the
guidelines, and jump into your system and add that storage space!
4 ^ ♦ 4 -
CD-ROMs,
Recordable CDs,
and DVD
J ust as the audio compact disc (CD) replaced the LP record
in most home stereos (assuming the current vinyl
comeback remains the domain of audiophiles), the CD-ROM
(short for compact disc — read only memory) has slowly
taken over the duties once reserved for floppy disks.
CD-ROMs are the standard for delivering new applications
to computer users, as well as the basis for nearly all games,
multimedia titles, art libraries, sound collections, and utilities.
Computer-related CD technology has been upgraded and
updated constantly to make it faster, more reliable and more
widely applicable. A big part of increasing the usability of the
standard has been to add recording capabilities to drives that
use CD media. This enables individuals and workgroups to
create archives of data on long-lasting CD media, as well as
creating their own low-cost CDs for distribution.
You may even find you have reason to create your own
audio CDs or data CD-ROMs, whether you’re recording as a
music professional, cutting the first CD for your garage band,
or creating a CD-ROM of reference data for your volunteer
organization. The technology exists for doing this affordably,
and it’s not at all difficult to integrate such technologies into
your Macintosh setup.
The latest CD-like technology, DVD (digital versatile disc is
the definition for this acronym, although the industry has yet
to agree on a standard definition), is growing in leaps and
bounds, promising to offer unprecedented storage space on a
disc the same size as a CD. This is not only opening up CD-like
technology to more storage options, but it’s making it possible
to deliver better-than-ever multimedia — even full-length
movies — for playback on DVD set-top players and DVD
computer peripherals.
4 - ♦
In This Chapter
CD technologies
Adding a CD-ROM
drive to your Mac
Software upgrades
for CD technologies
Recording your
own CDs
^ 4
208 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
This chapter covers the basics of CD technology including CD-ROM, recordable
CDs, and CDs that can be written to over and over again. You’ll also see how to
install an internal or external CD-ROM drive, how to add CD recording technology
to your Mac, and how to use CD recording software. Finally, you’ll take a look at
CD-ROM toolkit and acceleration software you can add to your Mac.
CD Technologies
The basic idea behind an audio CD (take digital music data and press it onto a
disc that is then read by a laser) has been manipulated, cajoled, and extended by
computer peripheral manufacturers into the computing CD standards of today.
Today’s CD-ROM and related technologies offer higher access speeds, quick
transmission of data, and a nonlinear data retrieval option that is more convenient
than many comparable technologies. Additionally, recent times have shown that
the overall price of CD-related technology — especially for individual recording of
CDs — has come down incredibly over the past months and years.
CDs and DVDs of all sorts have made a strong showing in computing and other
consumer electronics tasks. If you don’t already have a CD-ROM drive for your Mac,
you almost certainly should add one if you plan to buy any software, games, or
multimedia titles in the future. If you have aspirations to become your own
multimedia producer, or if you want a nice, reliable way to backup your hard drive
or network (especially for long-term archiving) you should look into recordable
CD technologies.
Finally, if you’re into the latest games, digital movies, and multimedia titles, you
might want to upgrade your Mac with a DVD-ROM drive.
How CD technology works
All CD technology employs the same basic premise: using an optical sensor and a
laser, a read-only head (in most of the implementations) passes over the disc as it
spins, reading the disc. It looks for microscopic pits — tiny indentations — in the
media, which translate as slightly less light reflected back to the optical sensor.
These variances in light represent digital data — ones and zeros that, ultimately,
are turned into something meaningful for the Mac to feed to its processor and
display on screen. A typical CD-ROM uses this technology to store up to 650MB of
digital information in the form of audio, video, or computer applications and data.
CD-ROM media is designed to be written once, using special tools, and read many
times using a CD-ROM drive. To create a CD-ROM, the pits and lands — the parts of a
CD that remain flat — are pressed into the media by a special CD-ROM press. The
press creates identical copies of a master CD after the master has been burned — a
process in which a laser that’s considerably stronger than the laser used in consumer
CD-ROM drives creates the microscopic pits that represent data. Each pressed
chapter 8 ^ CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD
CD-ROM now has a data imprint that’s identical to the master CD’s, impressed upon a
polycarbonate substrate at the heart of the disc itself.
After a CD-ROM is pressed, a thin aluminum coating is added on the top (that’s the
shiny part that often receives a painted label), and a clear plastic coating is added
on the bottom. It’s interesting to note that a typical CD or CD-ROM is actually read
by a laser that sweeps along the bottom of the disc, which explains why scratches
and painted labels on the top don’t interfere with the reading of data. Scratches can
be compensated for and dealt with on the lower layer, as well (turn over one of
your CDs and see if it doesn’t have a scratch or two), but drives are more sensitive
to damage on the underside of a CD.
When you place a CD in a CD-ROM drive, the drive spins up to its rated speed
in revolutions per minute (RPMs). Depending on where the data is on the CD,
however, that RPM level can change to maintain a steady stream of data. This is
called constant linear velocity and it grows out of a very basic need that audio CDs
exhibit — a uniform transfer rate. Because the concentric circles of data on a CD are
much smaller toward the middle of the media than at the outside (see Figure 8-1),
it’s important to speed up the RPMs of the disc the closer the head gets to the
center of the disc to maintain a constant flow of data.
Figure 8-1 : The disc shape means a CD needs to
slow down to read the same amount of data on the
outside tracks as it does on the inside tracks.
209
210 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Audio CDs do this to maintain a constant flow because they’re playing music.
Traditionally, CD-ROMs were based on this mechanism to offer constant data rates
as well, even at much faster speeds. The very latest drives, however, have switched
over to the constant angular velocity approach used by floppy drives and hard
drives: The media spins at the same speed all the time, meaning data is transferred
faster from the edges of the CD and slower from the inner parts of the disc. This is
seen as an acceptable trade-off because the high RPM rates of today’s drives make
it tough to change the speed at a moment’s notice. The constant RPMs also result in
an overall speed gain, allowing drive manufacturers to claim higher transfer speeds.
CD-ROM speeds
Drives are marketed and sold according to their data transfer rate. (Some CD
technology manufacturers also mention seek time, or the amount of time it takes
the CD to jump to a new set of data, which I’ll discuss in a moment.) Data transfer
rate’s magic number is actually a multiplier: It’s a number that suggests how much
faster than an audio CD player the CD-ROM drive is. Originally, CD-ROM drives
transferred data at the same rate as audio CD players — a constant 150 kilobytes
per second (KBps). This speed was too slow for many applications, such as
transferring video clips, so manufacturers found a way to push the drives to 2x
speeds, or two times an audio CD player. That’s about 300 KBps.
These days, CD-ROM drives can reach up to 24 KBps or higher (although speeds
over 12x generally reflect best-case data rates). Table 8-1 shows you the data rates
associated with particular speed multipliers.
Table 8-1
Theoretical Transfer Rates at a Given Multiplier
Speed Multiplier (versus Audio CD) Transfer Rate
1
150 KBps
2
300 KBps
4
600 KBps
6
900 KBps
8
1.2 MBps
12
1.8 MBps
16
2.4 MBps
24
3.6 MBps
Chapter 8 ^ CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 211
Again, I emphasize that these data rates are best case scenarios. Ignoring things
such as the load on your Mac’s processor, the SCSI bus to which the drive is
connected, the amount of L2 and disk cache used in conjunction with the CD-ROM
drive, and other factors that involve the computer, remember also that the drives
themselves have limitations. Drives rated 12x and above tend to use constant
angular velocity, so their maximum data rate is only applicable to the outer edge of
the CD. (Data on the inside of the CD may transfer at only slightly over 50 percent
of that rate.)
Another problem with this metric: Many CD-ROMs on the market today have been
optimized for 4x or slower drives. That means data is placed on the disc in such a
way that the slower drive can get to it quickly, giving faster drives no inherent
advantage except faster RPMs. That isn’t to say a fast drive isn’t a good thing; it
does mean that incremental upgrades, as in upgrading from an 8x to a 12x drive, are
almost always a waste of money.
The bottom line is this: The multiplier is only good for telling you some relative
things about the speed of a drive. It probably isn’t important to upgrade your
CD-ROM drive unless you have a 2x or slower drive. If you have the opportunity
to buy a faster drive at a reasonable cost, do so, realizing that the specific switch
from 12x to 16x can actually result in a slight slowdown due to the change to
constant angular velocity. Great drives can be had in the 8x to 12x range, and
then again at 24x.
You may even suffer some interesting slowdowns with 24x drives. If you ever have
the opportunity to load a CD-ROM in a 2x drive and a 24x drive at the exact same
time, try it, assuming both machines use the same version of the Mac OS. The 24x
drive takes longer to mount on the desktop. Why? Because it has to spin up all the
way to those 24x RPM heights, a process that takes a little extra time. In very informal
tests Tve conducted on my systems, a 2x drive in a Power Mac 6100 brings a CD-ROM
to the desktop about one second faster than a 24x drive in a Power Mac 8600/300.
The 12x drive in a 7300/200 fared better, beating the 8600 by about two seconds.
Aside from comparing the multiplier ratings in a general way, the other important
measurement to look at is the seek time, or how long it takes the drive (on average)
to find a particular data frame. This is especially critical if you use CD-ROMs for
nonlinear tasks, such as accessing a database, looking up info in reference
materials, or playing adventure games. Lawyers who use legal references on disc,
teachers who use electronic encyclopedias, and anyone who works with software
such as Microsoft Bookshelf (with its quotations, almanac, thesaurus. Zip code
lookup) will benefit from drives with faster (lower in milliseconds) seek times.
Linear tasks such as installing applications, watching digital videos, and playing
audio samples are much less affected by seek time.
212 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
CD-Recordable
So far the discussion has centered on CD-ROM technology, which doesn’t allow the
CD to be overwritten with new data; this is due to the CD burning process being
reasonably cost-prohibitive, and read-only drives being cheaper to install in new
computers geared for consumers. Recordable CD technologies have become less
expensive in recent years, however, enough so that hobbyists and freelancers can
afford to add them to their Mac workstations. Others recordable CD solutions are
designed for studio and production use, but are still more affordable — and easier
to use — than they were just months ago.
There are two basic methods for recording to CDs — CD-R (CD-Recordable) and
CD-RW (CD-Reivritable). The differences in functionality and price between the two
are fairly significant.
CD-R is a WORM (write-once read-many) technology. It allows you to write data to
a special CD-R disc once, and then read the data back as often as necessary. Most
CD-R software supports multisession writes, which simply means you don’t have to
fill the contents of the disc at once; you can go back and write again and again to
the disc until you fill it up. What you can’t do is overwrite data you’ve already
written to the disc. Once it’s on the disc, it stays there.
CD-R media, in fact, are slightly different from CD-ROM media. Both have the
polycarbonate substrate, the reflective aluminum backing (or gold backing on very
high-quality CD-R discs), and the plastic protective layer. Between the substrate
and the aluminum, however, CD-R media have another layer made of organic dye.
The dye is “burned” by a special laser to create slightly different light reflections
that represent the changes from ones to zeros in binary data. In this way, CD-R
media is different from CD-ROMs, as no actual pits and lands are created. They
remain compatible with most CD-ROM drives, however, because the changes in dye
composition reflect light much the same way as physical pits and lands do, so that
the media appears identical to a pressed CD-ROM as far as a typical CD-ROM drive
is concerned.
CD-R creation is a lot like burning master CDs for CD-ROM production, except the
media is slightly different and the process a little more forgiving. The files and
documents are arranged in a special program (such as Adaptec’s Toast) that then
writes the data sequentially to the CD-R media. Essentially, the software enables
you to create a “master disk” on your hard drive that is then burned onto the CD-R
media.
Note that this is different from the mass-production pressing method used to create
consumer CD-ROMs. CD-R drives aren’t designed for high-speed duplication as
CD presses are. It also means you can’t interrupt the process once a burn begins to
take place — the data must be written in a smooth, sequential fashion. Many drives
manage to do this by including large RAM buffers or advanced caching techniques
or creating “image files” that place all the data needed in one contiguous section of
the hard drive.
Chapter 8 > CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 213
CD-R drives were once very expensive compared to CD-ROM technology, but these
days they’re typically only about twice as expensive as CD-ROM drives, with CD-R
media being reasonably affordable as well. This makes them an interesting solution
for someone who has room for the drive (see Figure 8-2) and the inclination to
create CDs for archiving or for distribution.
Figure 8-2: This CD-R drive, from
Yamaha (vwvw.yamaha.com) doubles
as a 6x CD-ROM drive and attaches to
the external SCSI chain. (Photo courtesy
Yamaha Corp.)
CD-Rewritable
Of course, the problem with CD-R is you can only write to it once. You can’t reuse
the disc once it’s been recorded to (except to add another recording session to it if
there’s still room). CD-RW, on the other hand, is designed to be erasable.
CD-RW does this by replacing the recordable layer of CD-R (created by burning in a
special dye, as previously mentioned) with a new type of rewritable layer than can
be changed back to its original state. This CD-RW rewritable layer uses a chemical
compound that crystallizes when heated to a particular temperature, but returns
to a noncrystal state when made even hotter, and then cooled.
The major problem with this approach is it’s much more expensive to work with
than CD-R and the media isn’t quite as backward compatible, because this
approach doesn’t mirror the pits and lands of CD-ROM technology quite as
faithfully as does CD-R technology. Still, it’s great for sharing CD-RW discs with
other CD-RW-capable drives or as a backup mechanism to be used with a
particular drive.
DVD
Digital Versatile Disc (abbreviated DVD, and also known as Digital Video Disc) is, at
its most basic, a bigger, meaner version of CD-ROM technology. Capable of holding
a minimum of 4.7GB of data and a current maximum of about 17GB — depending on
the technology used to create the DVD-ROM — DVD is being aimed at a number of
different applications, just as CD technology was. Where CDs quickly became a
digital audio standard, DVD is projected to become the digital video standard,
edging out both VHS tape in home entertainment systems and CD-ROM technology
on personal computers.
214 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
DVD drives are backward compatible with CD-ROM drives, enabling them to play
audio CDs, CD-ROMs, and CD-R media (some early DVD drives can’t play CD-R).
DVD relies on the MPEG-2 standard for video compression, so it can’t play back
full-screen video on a computer that lacks MPEG-2 decompression hardware.
(Stand-alone DVD players for home entertainment centers include this technology.)
It can, however, be used without MPEG-2 hardware for transferring data stored in
databases or storing large-scale adventure games and clip art collections, just as
CD-ROM technology can. Most DVD-ROM drives do ship with MPEG-2 cards,
however, with some notable exceptions. For instance, Apple’s first DVD-ROM drives
were installed in Power Macintosh G3 machines without MPEG-2 decompression
hardware.
Note
X
The DVD standard also calls for support for the AC-3 Dolby Surround Sound standard
for audio, which the decoding hardware should also be capable of outputting to a
stereo receiver. Most DVD decompression cards offer S-video, composite, and audio
connectors. Even with this hardware, DVD tends to require a powerful Macintosh
(PowerPC 604 in most cases), built on a PCI expansion bus.
DVD drives transfer data at about 1.2 MBps, or approximately the rate of speed of a
9x CD-ROM drive. This is data throughput good enough for MPEG-2 compressed
video streams that are then decompressed quickly using dedicated hardware. At
4.7GB, that’s about 2 hours of MPEG-2 compressed video — at 17GB, about 24 hours
of MPEG-1 video (which offers quality similar to VHS) can be stored.
Although the DVD medium is about the same size and appearance as a CD,
technological advances have increased its capacity considerably. The basic
manufacturing process is similar; in fact, CD-ROM manufacturers can retool fairly
easily to support DVD production. However, the basic technology has advanced
considerably since the CD specification was finalized.
For one thing, DVD media can be both dual-layer and dual-sided. Using a
semitransparent layer that sits over a lower layer of data, a single side of a DVD can
store about 9GB as opposed to the single-sided, single-layer capacity of 4.7GB.
Double that again (nearly) if the media is double-sided and double-layered.
The capacity of a single layer, however, has been improved by making more data fit
in the same amount of space as a CD-ROM. The minimum pit length of a CD is 0.83
micro meters; on a DVD it’s 0.4 micrometers. The tracks of pits and lands don’t
have to be as far apart, either, with only 0.74 micrometers required for DVD vs. 1.6
micrometers for CD technology.
And there are DVD recording solutions on the horizon, as well. DVD-R drives allow
write-once capabilities to DVD disks as large as 3.9GB, whereas rewritable DVD-RAM
will allow either 2.6GB or 5.2GB of storage per disc, depending on whether or not
the disc is double-sided. DVD-RAM works much like the CD-RW standard to enable
you to write to DVD media. As of this writing the standard is still in flux, with a
competing standard, DVD+RW, promising 3.0GB capacity per side.
Chapter 8 ■¥ CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 215
As of this writing, DVD technology is still slow to arrive in the Macintosh. Early out of
the gate are three companies: Apple, with DVD drives for Power Macs and
PowerBooks; e4 (www . e4 . com), with the Cool-DVD kit; and Pioneer (vavw.
pioneer, com), with DVD-ROM and DVD-R units.
Add CD-ROM Technology to Your Mac
If you don’t already have a CD-ROM drive for your Mac, I wholeheartedly
recommend you look into adding one (or even a DVD-ROM drive, if one is available
for a reasonable price) as quickly as you can. You’ll need one — at least, if you ever
plan to update the system software on your Mac, play multimedia titles, or browse
a CD-based encyclopedia. Will you be installing Microsoft Office, for instance? In
that case, 1 recommend a CD-ROM drive. (I’m not sure if Office 98 even comes on
floppies, but if it does, it probably takes at least 50 of them.) Same goes for
installing the Mac OS.
In fact, one of the best reasons for installing a CD-ROM drive might be to take
advantage of all those CD-ROMs that are being bundled with Macintosh,
programming, and Web development magazines these days. If you have a slower
Internet connection, these CDs can be doubly handy, giving you access to the
latest OS updates, utilities, and code samples without forcing an all-night download
on you.
If I haven’t yet tempted you, don’t forget you can use a CD-R drive to put together
your own CDs of music, talk, or whatever else you’d like to create or produce. If
you’re one of the growing numbers who has only got a CD player in your car, maybe
you’d like to transfer some tapes to CD-R for those long driving trips. (Of course,
observe all copyright laws in doing so.)
Evangelista tip: Boot froiii a CD-ROM
If you're installing a third-party or external CD-ROM drive, you'll still want it to act like a
built-in Apple CD-ROM when it comes to rebooting off the CD media. There are plenty of
reasons for this: You can boot off a Mac OS CD-ROM to run Disk Tools or reinstall parts of
the system, or you can boot from the TechTool or Norton Utilities CD-ROM so you can run
some tests on your boot drive.
With an internal CD-ROM mechanism, all you have to do is hold down the C key as the
machine starts up and it'll boot from the internal CD-ROM drive. But if you've got either a
third-party drive or an external drive, Evangelista Mark Boszko, owner of DragonF/X, has a
tip for you:
(continued)
216 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
(continued)
"Most of the time, if you want to upgrade your system software or run a disk utility on the
Mac's internal hard drive, you'll want to boot from the CD-ROM drive. I've found that some
third-party external CD-ROM drives won't boot from the CD-ROM when you hold down the
C key.
"I've found, though, that holding down the §§-Opt-Shift-Del keys will usually do the trick,
unless you have another external drive with a System file on it -then you'll have to press
§g-Opt-Shift-Del and C."
Choosing a drive
Let me quickly give you an overview of the factors involved in choosing a CD-ROM
or DVD solution. You need to know a number of different things about your setup
before you can move on to buying and installing the drive:
> Available space. Do you need an external SCSI model of CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
drive, or do you have an available drive bay? And, what technology do you
need for your drive? If it’s DVD, there’s a good chance it’ll require an EIDE
interface, so you’ll need to have a free EIDE connector in your Power
Macintosh 4400 or G3 or above system. Otherwise, external SCSI drives are a
bit more expensive, but much easier to add.
If you plan to replace the CD-ROM drive in a very new Power Macintosh system, you'll
likely be freeing up an EIDE connector. (Check your documentation.)
4“ Functionality. If you want to be able to record CDs, you’ll need to choose a
CD-R or CD-RW drive. Don’t forget to shop around for the best media prices
and take that into consideration. In some cases, CD-R can be a lot less
expensive and more compatible with older CD-ROM drives. You can also get
CD-ROM changers that can hold more than one CD-ROM and switch them on
demand.
^ Speed. As discussed in the previous section, you should balance speed with
price in a CD-ROM drive and make sure you’re not upgrading for an
insignificant speed boost. Drives in the 8x to 12x range are perfectly
acceptable for use with most any games or multimedia titles. Don’t forget to
check the seek time (usually measured in milliseconds) and compare it to
others if you plan to use the drive for reference and database lookups.
Finally, you’ll find when shopping for drives that the brand name on the drive
doesn’t always match the brand name of the actual components used to create the
drive; you might be more interested in the component manufacturer. These drives
are made by companies such as Sony, Panasonic, Phillips, NEC, and Mitsumi, but
they’re branded and distributed (often) by companies such as APS Technologies,
Club-Mac, and Mactell.
Chapter 8 4 CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 217
If you want to know the specifications for a particular drive, ask for the brand name
and model number of the drive mechanism, and then check out the manufacturer’s
Web site for details.
Installing a CD-ROM drive
Installing a CD-ROM drive doesn’t differ much from installing a hard drive, whether
it’s internal or external. If there’s any major difference, it’s that you’ll probably need
special driver software for the CD-ROM drive (which is often, but not always, true
for new hard drives), and there’s a slightly higher chance that you’ll want to install
a CD-ROM or DVD drive that uses an EIDE interface instead of a SCSI connection.
External drives
If you’re installing an external CD-ROM drive, it’s going to be a SCSI model. You add
it just as you would a SCSI hard drive:
1. Identify an available SCSI ID number using the Apple System Profiler or a
similar tool.
2. Shut down the Macintosh and ground yourself electrically.
3. Determine where in the SCSI chain you’d like to put the drive, and then plug
the SCSI cables into the connectors on the back of the drive. If you have the
correct cabling, you can add it to the middle of your chain to avoid moving
terminators around. If this is your only SCSI device, connect the SCSI cable to
the SCSI port on the back of the Mac, and then connect it to the drive (see
Figure 8-3).
DVD: Special installation
These instructions, by the way, should work for any of the drives mentioned in this chapter—
CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-ROM. The only additional issue regards internal DVD drives which
(often) need to be connected to a special expansion card responsible for MPEG-2 and AC-3
digital audio decompression.
The card installs in a free PCI slot and is connected to the DVD drive via an included cable
(consult the drive's documentation). Video-out and audio-out ports on the back of the card
can then be used to connect the drive to a television, stereo receiver, or home entertain-
ment system, if desired.
218 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Figure 8-3: External drives need little more than a SCSI
connection.Shown here Is a Toshiba XM-6201B 32x CD-ROM drive
(www.toshiba.com).
4. Terminate the drive connector if necessary. Some drivers are self-terminating,
and others offer a switch on the back of the drive to enable termination. Still
others require a special plug for terminating the device.
5. With the SCSI chain properly connected and terminated, restart your
Macintosh.
6. Install the software drivers that came with the drive. They should help you
identify that the Mac recognizes the drive and is making it available for use on
the SCSI chain.
7. Restart your Mac.
After restarting, your Mac should load the extensions necessary to use the CD-ROM
drive. Test it by inserting a CD-ROM to see if the disc’s icon appears on the desktop.
If it does, you’ve successfully installed the drive.
Internal drives
Installing an internal drive can be quite a bit more difficult than working with an
external drive. Depending on the type of case your Mac has and the drive bay itself,
you may have trouble getting the drive to fit correctly.
chapter 8 > CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 219
Some of Apple’s Macs were made to accept only a CD-ROM drive built by Apple, end
of story. An example of these included all-in-one Power Macintosh machines and
the Performa 630, 640, 6200, 6300 series of Macs. Take a close look at your Apple
Macintosh and notice that the button for the drive is actually built into the front
plastic of the Mac — it’s not on the face of the drive itself. Most third-party drives
are all-in-one units with a button on the face. To replace an Apple CD-ROM drive,
you’ll need an Apple CD-ROM drive (see Figure 8-4). The exception is a Mac that has
a bezel, or front plastic facing, you can remove to reveal an available drive key for
the CD-ROM drive (see Figure 8-5).
Figure 8-4; On the top: front view of a typical Panasonic drive
mechanism. On the bottom: CD-ROM drive built into an Apple
Performa 6200 series.
If that works out for you, you’ll probably be able to upgrade (or add) an internal
CD-ROM drive. Just make sure a bezel kit or a complete mounting kit is available for
your particular Mac model. In the Mac world, one of the main purveyors of these
bezels and mounting kits is Proline Distribution (www. pro! i ne . com). You’ll find
their kits sold wherever internal Macintosh drives are sold, including popular Web
sites.
220 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Figure 8-5: Pulling the bezel off the CD-ROM bay for a Power
Macintosh 6100
Because most Macs come with a CD-ROM or DVD drive, there isn’t as much of an
aftermarket for these drives and their mounting kits as there are for, say. Zip and
Jaz drives. You’ll need to shop carefully for the mounting kit, making sure you do
your best to match the manufacturer of the drive you’re adding with the
bezel/mounting kit that you’re buying. You’ll also have to buy a bezel/mounting kit
designed for your particular Macintosh model. Otherwise, the drive itself shouldn’t
be too hard to find; most of the major CD-ROM manufacturers make SCSI internal
CD-ROM drives. (Certain Mac models have an internal EIDE connection available.)
If you buy a drive that isn’t part of a kit designed specifically for a Macintosh, you may
need to buy software that can add a Mac driver for your CD-ROM drive. FWB CD
Toolkit (discussed later in this chapter) handles most major manufacturer’s drives.
With the kit and drive in hand, you’re ready to fit the two together. Here’s how to
install an internal drive:
1. Choose a SCSI ID number that won’t conflict with any of the other devices in
your Mac. (Make sure you choose one on the correct bus, too, if your Mac has
both an internal and an external bus.)
2. Shut down your Mac, ground yourself electrically, and unplug the machine.
chapter 8 4* CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 221
3. Remove the case and locate the open drive bay for the CD-ROM. (If necessary,
remove the existing CD-ROM.) Remove the front bezel that covers the bay
you’ll be using.
4. Install the mounting kit on the CD-ROM drive (see Figure 8-6).
You won't necessarily have to install a mounting kit on some Mac clone machines
that use Intel-compatible PC-type enclosures. In that case, you'll likely just slide the
drive into its bay (make sure the front of the drive is flush with the front of the case)
and then screw the drive into its drive cage. In most cases, holes in the drive cage will
line up with screw holes in the drive.
Figure 8-6: The CD-ROM mounting kit will enable the drive to slide
into your particular Mac's drive bay.
5. Select the correct SCSI ID for the drive. You’ll likely do this by setting a jumper
or switching a series of dip switches. (The drive’s manual should tell you
how.)
6. Slide the drive into its bay. Lock it into place (with most mounting kits the
drive slides into the bay, locking into a plastic tab or lever).
7. Plug the SCSI cable into the SCSI connector and the power cable into the
power connector, both of which are on the back of the drive.
222 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
8. Reassemble the case and install the new front bezel. Test it carefully to make
sure it lines up correctly with the new drive; otherwise, you may need to try
remounting or realigning the drive.
9. Reinstall the case. (You can skip this step for testing purposes.)
10. Plug the Mac in and start it up.
11. Run any software that was included with the CD-ROM drive. If no Macintosh
drivers were included, run FWB CD Toolkit to install drivers.
12. Restart the Macintosh.
If all goes well, your drive should be recognized by its drivers and available once
the Mac has completely booted up. Check it using the Apple System Profiler or by
installing a CD in the drive to see if it mounts to the desktop correctly.
CD-Related Software
There are plenty of CD-ROM and DVD titles out there for you enjoy, whether you’re
a teacher, a researcher, a professional, or a gamer — or, perhaps you’re a little of all
those. However, another class of software may merit your attention when you’re
ready to upgrade your CD-ROM, CD-R, or DVD equipment — CD utilities.
Some utilities are necessary just to get third-party CD-ROM and DVD drives up and
running. Other utilities help it run a little faster and might be worth some
consideration if you think your drive is too slow. Still other utilities work with CD-R
and CD-RW drives to properly record, or burn, data into the CD for safekeeping.
CD Utilities
This category is dominated by FWB, Inc., makers of the Hard Drive Toolkit and its
sibling, the CD-ROM Toolkit. If you buy a third-party hard drive or CD-ROM drive
that includes Mac software, FWB is probably the source of that software.
If you didn’t get the software with your CD-ROM, you might consider looking into it.
The CD-ROM Toolkit makes it possible for you to install third-party drives from
various vendors to serve as emergency boot drives or for system maintenance.
Table 8-2 shows the manufacturers supported by the CD-ROM Toolkit.
Chapter 8 ^ CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 223
Table 8-2
CD-ROM Manufacturers Supported by the FWB CD-ROM Toolkit
Vendor
Drive Type
Apple
CD-ROM
Chinon
CD-ROM
Hitachi
CD-ROM
NEC
CD-ROM
Panasonic
CD-ROM
Philips
CD-ROM
Pioneer
CD-ROM
Pinnacle Micro
CD-R
Plextor
CD-ROM
Ricoh
CD-R
Sanyo
CD-ROM
Sony
CD-ROM, CD-R
Teac
CD-ROM
Toshiba
CD-ROM
Yamaha
CD-R
The Toolkit also features a number of speed enhancements, including flexible cache
settings that enable you to decide how much RAM to use for look-ahead, directory
storage and other caching techniques. The more RAM (and/or hard drive space)
you dedicate to the CD-ROM cache, the faster it will seem to run: Data is moved
from the CD to RAM in the background, and then accessed directly from the much-
faster RAM when more data is needed.
The CD-ROM Toolkit gives you access to other options as well, such as the different
types of disc formats it should attempt to mount, whether or not to have the CD-
ROM tray eject whenever the Mac is shut down, and whether you want to be
warned when a badly mastered CD-ROM has been inserted in the drive.
Casa Blanca Works (www. prol i ne . com/cbwi ndex . html) offers a rival program,
CDWorks, that also acts as a driver for most SCSI CD-ROM drives, and includes the
capability to boot from the drive and to alter cache settings to speed up CD-ROM
access. CDWorks also touts a feature that enables you to disable Apple’s built-in
cache, resulting in a speed-up, according to the company’s literature.
224 Part II 4* Peiiorming the Upgrade
A third utility, CD Mounter Plus, comes from Software Architects
(WWW. softarch . com). This one features a special audio CD remote for easy
playback of audio CDs, as well as offering all the typical support for CD-ROM drive
brands and SCSI mounting.
Creating CD-R
Adaptec, Inc., leads the market for CD burning with a number of different software
offers, the most obvious of which is Adaptec Toast. Toast helps you do all the
things necessary to put together a good CD-R — organize the data, get it ready to be
sent to the CD-R disc, and manage the data flow so that it writes correctly,
smoothly, and sequentially. That’s how you create CDs for distribution or sharing
among typical CD-ROM drives.
Toast isn’t the only way to create CD-Rs. New technology from Adaptec and others,
called packet writing, focuses on individual packets of data that can be stored,
instead of a continuous data stream. This allows you to treat a CD-R more like a
typical hard drive: You just drag and drop new files onto the CD-R. The end result is
burning a CD-R becomes a lot more like saving files to a typical removable media
device.
Drives have to be certified to run with DirectCD, Adaptec’s software for this sort
of drag-and-drop CD-R creation. At issue is the fact that DirectCD and similar
incremental CD-R approaches use the Universal Disc Format (UDF^ to make their
magic possible. (In the Mac OS, this magic translates to the ability to simply drag
and drop files onto CD-R media in the Finder — a vast improvement for novice and
occasional use.) UDF essentially circumvents the need for multiple sessions every
time you write to the CD-R, allowing you to leave the session “open” until you’re
ready to remove the CD-R disc from the drive or use it on another computer.
The CD-R drive you use must support UDF and the ability to open and close an
ISO 9660 (PC file format) session without shutting down the drive. Because many
CD-ROM drives aren’t capable of reading the UDF format, the CD-R must be
translated into ISO 9660 if it is to be distributed to other users. DirectCD includes
the ability to read and write directly to UDF format drives, and the Mac OS now
supports UDF natively with Mac OS 8.1 and above.
If you’ve got all the requisites for DirectCD, you simply install it and configure its
control panel (see Figure 8-7). You’ll then be able to drag files you want to store on
a CD-R directly onto that disc in the Finder.
chapter 8 4- CD-ROMs, Recordable CDs, and DVD 225
Figure 8-7: DirectCD makes CD-R
recording almost fun.
Summary
4* If you don’t already have a CD-ROM drive, there’s a good chance you’ll need
one. Most new programs today are distributed on CD-ROM, as are most
games, reference, and multimedia software titles. A very old Mac may be able
to survive without CD technology, but a newer Mac shouldn’t. In fact, owners
of the latest Power Macs might even want to look into DVD, the latest in
digital disc technologies.
> If you’ve already got a CD-ROM drive, think before you upgrade; there’s
usually not an amazing increase in the speeds of the drives. At least, the
increase usually isn’t dramatic enough to warrant a hefty upgrade price. If you
don’t have a CD-ROM drive at all, though, very fast drives are very affordable
and generally easy to add. All you really need to decide is whether you’ll
install the drive internally or externally. If you want to install an internal drive,
you’ll need to find out if your Mac will support SCSI or IDE for the connection.
4* With the drive in place, you might want to look into some CD-related software
upgrades that can speed up your access and help you manage your drives.
4 You may also want to create your own CDs for others to play back or even
record to. If that’s the case, you’ll need to get special software that enables
you to record CDs in conjunction with special drives (CD-R and CD-RW drives)
designed for the task.
Removable
Drives and
Backup
A lthough removable media devices have always been a
good idea for professionals and Mac artists dealing in
large files, it’s only been in the last few years that removable
drives have become a viable way to significantly extend home
or office system storage capacity. At one time, the floppy disk
was a great way to transport files and backup important
documents, because the files tended to be small enough to fit
on a floppy. These days, though, other alternatives are
necessary. In response to these demands, removable media
devices have become easier to use, work as fast as typical
hard drives, and offer reasonable enough costs and capacities
that they’re worthwhile to cart around or use for backing up
and archiving.
The Iomega Zip drive isn’t completely responsible for this
revival, but it’s fair to say that it’s done its part. In fact, with
the overwhelming popularity of the Zip drive, it’s likely to
become a defacto standard replacement for floppies. (Already
I’m surprised when a colleague doesn’t have a Zip drive
available, especially if we plan to swap Web site data or
graphics.) It does have some heated competition, including
the LSI 20 standard, a revamp of the original floppy drive that
handles both high-capacity 120MB floppy disks and the
standard 1.44MB floppies that everyone is used to.
The bottom line is this: If you don’t have a removable drive for
your Mac, you should get one (unless you’re struggling along
without something even more important like a joystick or cool
speakers). I’d recommend a Zip drive even for old Macs like
4 ^ 4 ^
In This Chapter
Removable
technologies
explained
Chart: Removable
capacities and
performance
Adding a removable
drive to your Mac
Implementing your
backup plan
> > >
228 Part II 4' Performing the Upgrade
the Mac Plus or Mac SE. In fact, Td recommend them, in some cases, instead of a
hard drive for those models (see the Note that follows).
But whatever your Mac, some sort of removable drive is a good idea, whether it's
for moving files around, backing files up, or both. The Zip drive may be tough to
resist (especially because it’s built into many Macs), and it’s certainly a good
choice. But consider some of the other drives as well — some of the latest store 1.5-
or 2.0GB of data per disk or cartridge, which can be a great way to back up a lot of
important data all at once.
Why recommend a Zip drive as a hard drive for a classic Mac (Mac Plus, the early Mac
SE)? As those Macs don’t all have internal drive options, your only hard drive options
are external. Most modern SCSI drives, however, are too fast for the older Macs;
although you can use the drives, you have to purposefully slow the rate at which data
is transferred by those drives. At the same time, older (used) drives are usually in
40- or 80MB capacities for those machines. Zip drives are a tad slower than modern
drives — a deficit that works well with older Macs. Plus, Zips offer a lot of flexibility for
those older Macs, making it easy to get an additional 100MB of storage every time
you buy a new cartridge.
Removable Drives Explained
The Mac’s ability to easily add SCSI devices, along with the popularity of storage-
intensive images and desktop publishing files, made removable drives an early,
popular upgrade for Mac professionals. Back when Intel-compatible PCs were still
focused on number-crunching and word processing using a character-based
operating system, the Mac was encouraging users to add photographic-quality
images to their layouts and presentations. This required removable media
technologies though, because getting the file to the local print shop or prepress
house was necessary for preparing it for public consumption. Professional Mac
users needed an easy way to do this.
This state of affairs encouraged companies like Iomega and SyQuest to come up
with a new sort of storage device — the removable cartridge device or removable
hard drive. Using fairly large cartridges and special external SCSI drives, Mac users
could write data to cartridges that could hold 20MB, 44MB, and in some cases
88MB of data at once. You could then take the cartridge with you to your final
destination. (Figure 9-1 shows a newer SyQuest model that can work with these
cartridges.)
Chapter 9 > Removable Drives and Backup 229
Figure 9-1: SyQuest cartridges made it easy to transport data
from one place to another.
These days, people have largely moved on from the original SyQuest and Iomega
drives (especially the Bernoulli models). They’re slower, smaller-capacity
technologies than many of the more exciting new approaches. You’ll still find the
drives and cartridges for sale, of course, as they’re around for posterity and many
shops still make use of the drives for backing up and transporting documents.
As the technology has progressed, the three factors that typify computing have
worked their magic on removable media: It’s become faster, smaller, and able to
hold greater capacities. Now, the inexpensive Iomega Zip drive and the SyQuest
EZFlyer drives can hold between 100MB and 230MB (depending on the model
and manufacturer) on cartridges that are barely larger than floppy disks (see
Figure 9-2).
Speed, size, and capacity have all reached a point where removable media drives
make sense for just about anybody, because a Zip or SyQuest disk can easily be
used for transporting files, backing up files, or simply extending the capacity of
your computer.
230 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Figure 9-2: Zip disks are thicker than floppies, but not much larger.
If you like computer games, for instance, but don’t have room for them on your
main hard drive, you can just grab the Jaz disk that holds all your games and pop it
into your Jaz drive; it won’t run much slower, and you’ll have your main hard drive
available for other data. Plus, if you’ve got kids, getting the games away from them
(or using the games as a reward for completed homework) is as easy as taking
control of the Jaz cartridge. You might similarly create a Jaz disk that has all your
Web development tools and documents on it, so you can pop it in and continue
working on a Web project. Or a Zip with all your personal documents on it might be
a convenient way to move from workstation to workstation on campus or while
traveling.
The other factor that’s made removable media popular is its ease of use. Tape
drives — though still available and popular as a backup medium — are notorious
for being difficult to use, requiring special software and some downtime while the
backup takes place. And tapes often don’t work like regular disks, so you can’t just
use the Finder to save to them. Jaz, Zip and SyQuest technologies just pop up on
your desktop as icons, allowing you to open them, copy files to and from them and
launch programs from them. This similarity to hard drives is part of what’s driving
their success, especially with consumers and small businesses.
But they’re not the only technologies worth looking into. Magneto-optical drives
can hold a great amount of information on CD-like media that lasts a long time in
storage, isn’t terribly volatile, and can be used for fairly fast retrieval. Digital audio
tape (DAT) and tape cartridge backup devices also have their niche as cheap
media. If you need to back up an entire network for safekeeping, you’d need quite a
few Jaz cartridges to get it done. With tape, it’s a different story. So, although you’re
Chapter 9 -f Removable Drives and Backup 231
likely to want one of the popular, hip removable drives that’s on the market
currently, you’ll still want to shop around for the one that’s best for you.
Removable cartridge drives
It’s hard to know what exactly to call the Zip and SyJet class of drives. The name is
already taken by actual removable hard drives that the industry has experimented
with in the past, along with the PCMCIA (or PC Card) standard of hard drives that
can be plugged into PowerBooks, eMates and other portable computers. At the
same time, high-density floppy drives, although another popular way to refer to these
drives, is extending the use of the word floppy to the point of being ridiculous.
There’s nothing floppy about any of these hard plastic cartridges. (A typical 3.5-
inch floppy disk actually contains a floppy disc inside its shell, but these newer
cartridges offer completely different mechanisms.)
So I suppose I’ll just call them removable cartridge drives. Whatever you call them,
they’re important to computing. Iomega has sold millions of Zip drives, and I’ve
seen reports that they continue to crank out over a million per month. With Zip well
on its way to becoming a de facto standard, the others are vying for more
specialized niches, but they’re important, too.
So how do they work? For the most part, these drives are actually combinations
of different technologies — a little magneto-optical here, a little hard-drive-like
mechanism there. (In fact, the original SyQuest cartridges actually were removable
hard drives of a sort, with little platters and spindles just like what hard drives
have.)
First, take a look at a chart that shows you the specifications and speeds of each
(see Table 9-1). In the following sections, I introduce you to the most popular of
these drives.
Table 9-1
Popular Removable Cartridge Drives and Performance
Drive
Capacity
Interface
Max. Speed
internal Available?
Iomega Zip
100MB
SCSI-1
1.4 MBps
Yes
Iomega ZipPlus
100MB
SCSI-1
1.4 MBps
No
SyQuest EZFlyer
230MB
Fast SCSI
2.4 MBps
No
Iomega Jaz 1GB
1GB
Fast SCSI
6.6 MBps
Yes
Iomega Jaz 2GB
2GB
Ultra SCSI
6.7 MBps
Yes
SyQuest SyJet
1.5GB
Fast SCSI
6.9 MBps
Yes
SyQuest Quest
4.8GB
Ultra/Wide
SCSI
10.6 MBps
Yes
Castlewood Orb
2.16GB
Ultra SCSI
12.2 MBps
Yes
232 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Note that the maximum speed number in the table is the maximum sustained
transfer rate that’s claimed by the company in their technical specifications — most
of the time, the average rate will be much lower. Also, although performance is
important, it’s not the only factor in choosing a removable cartridge drive. All these
drives offer hard-drive-like performance, although the high-end models are
certainly better suited for multimedia and similar needs.
In-depth statistics weren't available at the time of writing regarding the SuperDisk, a
USB-based LSI 20 floppy drive announced shortly after the iMac was announced. The
SuperDisk should work with both 120MB LSI 20 disks as well as standard 1.44MB
disks in both Intel-compatible PC and Mac formats. The first of these drives has been
announced as a joint effort between Panasonic and Imation (www.imation.com).
Iomega Zip
Currently available in a 100MB capacity, the Zip drive may never increase that
number (at least, it will probably always be compatible with the 100MB cartridges).
After all, these are the most popular removable media drives ever — with apologies
to floppy disk drives and CD-ROM drives — and part of this success relies on
turning Zip cartridges into commodities. That is, you ought to be able to exchange
a Zip disk with anyone and have them be able to immediately read the disk.
Apple itself addressed the issue of swapping Zip disks with the release of Mac OS 8.1,
which included a new version of the PC Exchange system extension. Not only does
the Mac OS support Windows 95 long file names, but it also has the ability to read
Windows and DOS-formatted Zip cartridges (and other removable media).
The Iomega drive comes in both internal and external versions. The internal SCSI
version usually requires a mounting kit that’s specific to your Mac’s model. If you
opt for the external model, it’ll connect directly to your external SCSI bus. You’ll
have to set the Zip’s SCSI ID externally — you get a choice of ID number 5 or
number 6 on most models. You can also use the Zip as a pass-through connector
to other SCSI devices on the SCSI bus. The drive has only 25-pin SCSI connectors,
however, so you may need an adapter for some SCSI cables.
The second generation of Zip drives — the ZlpPlus drive — switches back and forth
between SCSI and Intel-compatible parallel connections, enabling you to use the
drive with either platform. It also offers an on-off switch for users who’d like to
power down between uses.
The Zip disks (or Zip cartridges) have a 100MB capacity when unformatted, which
is lowered to about 95MB after the formatting process. You can buy the cartridges
preformatted for the Macintosh, but if you can’t find such cartridges, you can use
DOS-formatted cartridges and reformat them for the Macintosh. (Or, with Mac OS
8.1 or greater, you can simply save files to the DOS-formatted cartridge.) You use
the included Zip Tools software to reformat the disk, and this takes about ten
minutes on a Mac for a full reformat (including a test of the cartridge) or a minute
or so for a quick format. (See Figure 9-3).
chapter 9 4- Removable Drives and Backup 233
Figure 9-3: The Zip drive comes
with its own software, including
tools for formatting, backing up
and other tasks.
Chapter 23 discusses formatting Zip disks and other removable disks.
If youVe ever flipped a Zip cartridge over and looked at the back, right-hand corner,
you may have noticed a little clear plastic section. What's it for? All it does is tell the
Zip drive it's dealing with an actual Zip disk that's been inserted. Without this identi-
fier, the drive won't clamp down, thereby preventing it from engaging its read/write
head on some other sort of media that could damage the drive.
Iomega Jaz
The Jaz drive currently offers capacities of 1GB and 2GB of data storage per
cartridge — quite an amount for media professionals or for backing up your Macs.
(The Jaz was originally released with support 500MB cartridges, which are rare
these days but still useful.) The Jaz offers high-speed access to your data, on par
with a typical hard drive. This makes it a reasonable alternative to buying another
hard drive for secondary storage — especially if you like the idea of being able to
swap out one cartridge for another and start over again with another one or two
gigabytes of free space.
Not just Iomega anymore
The Zip drive is so popular that Iomega has seen fit to allow a number of companies to
build Zip-compatible drives and use their own brand names on them. Epson America
(www.epson.com) is the most visible clone maker, offering actual Zip-compatible drives
for internal and external use. Other companies focus on the media; Zip disks are made by
both Sony (www.sony.com) and FujiFilm (www.fujifilm.com). All these devices and
media should be compatible with one another, so even if you have an Iomega drive you
can feel secure buying media made by another company and vice versa.
234 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
The .laz 2GB version is the first to offer an Ultra SCSI connector, allowing you to
hook the external drive up to your Mac using a 50-pin to 50-pin connector. (For best
results you’ll need an expansion card SCSI interface with an external connector that
supports Ultra SCSI speeds. Most built-in Mac SCSI connectors are limited to SMB
per second.) Sustained transfer rates can reach up to 8.7 MBps, with quick bursts
getting all the way up to the Ultra SCSI limit of 20 MBps. The Jaz 1GB is slightly
slower, offering a Fast SCSI interface with a burst rate of 10 MBps and a maximum
sustained rate of 6.6 MBps.
Jaz drives provide an extremely flexible backup solution. Just the opportunity to
back up one or two gigabytes of data at one time is incredibly useful, especially
in workgroup situations. You’ll also find that it’s easy to back up a workgroup
server on Jaz disks because they’re fast, reliable, and can store quite a bit of data.
(If necessary, you can always compress the data using a backup utility or a
compression tool like Stuffit Deluxe from Aladdin Systems — www.aladdinsys.com.)
In many ways, the convenience of Jaz and its ilk beats the other options, including
magneto-optical and tape-backup technologies. Jaz drives work just like hard drives
and offer a higher transfer rate, making them easier to work with than some of the
other backup solutions. Of course, the cartridges can also be a bit more expensive.
SyQuest EZFlyer
Seen as a competitor to the Iomega Zip drive, the EZFlyer is a removable cartridge
drive capable of higher transfer speeds and capacities than the Zip drive, with a
230MB cartridge capacity that’s backward compatible with older EZ135 135MB
cartridges. Unfortunately, the EZFlyer isn’t compatible with the Zip’s media, and
hasn’t caught on the way the Zip drive has.
The EZFlyer is very fast for its price range and is currently capable of over double
the capacity of a Zip drive. Many users find it’s a great choice for simple backup
and data storage solutions or for restoring stored applications and data to lab-
based computers.
So, although you won’t be sharing your data with as many people, the EZFlyer is
still a great solution for a number of tasks, including quick and easy backup onto
media that’s cheaper than the one-to-two gigabyte removable drives such as the
Iomega Jaz and SyQuest SyJet. For day-to-day backup of a single Mac, you can’t
beat the EZFlyer. It’s also a nice solution for aging Macs that never have had much
storage in the first place, enabling you to store applications, games, or data files on
the EZFlyer cartridge and then run them directly.
SyQuest SyJet
SyQuest’s competitor to Iomega’s Jaz drive offers many of the same characteristics
and advantages, while competing on price and performance. Offering good speed,
1.5GB of storage space and features like a special A/V mode (for high sustained
rates of throughput), the SyJet offers a similar level of convenience and efficiency
chapter 9 > Removable Drives and Backup 235
for backup and data-sharing tasks. The 1.5GB media makes it another ideal choice
for workgroups, graphics professionals, and multimedia artists. (See Figure 9-4).
Figure 9-4: The SyQuest SyJet drive and cartridge. Both are a little
bigger than the Zip, but they store a lot more data (www.syquest.com).
SyQuest Quest
The Quest is currently one of the higher-capacity removable media drives in
existence, offering the ability to save up to 4.7GB of data on a single cartridge.
This fast removable drive is aimed at media professionals and larger servers and
workgroups that need the capability to back up large amounts of data quickly.
All-digital recording studios, video editing workstations, and Macs in multimedia
studios can benefit from the Ultra/Wide SCSI connection offered by the Quest, with
sustained rates around 10 MBps and burst rates that can reach 40 MBps.
Although SyQuest builds the Quest, its real market is as an Original Equipment
Manufacturer (OEM) device, meaning other companies are focusing on packaging
and selling the drive in their own enclosures or adding them to systems internally.
The Ultra/Wide interface demands an internal connection and special high-end SCSI
capabilities (see Chapter 7 for more on SCSI type). If you’re interested in something
like this, shop the Mac stores and catalogs to see what companies are making the
Quest available.
Castlewood Orb
The Orb, although not an offering from one of the big hitters, Iomega or SyQuest,
promises to be a special removable drive. Described as a magneto-resistive drive,
the Orb is a high-speed, high-capacity drive focused squarely on users who want
236 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Web
such a drive at a low cost. The Orb competes right up there with the Quest and
similar high-capacity, high-speed drives.
Learn more about the Orb at www.castl ewoodsys terns . com.
Magneto-optical drives
Magneto-optical (M-0) drives certainly aren’t as popular as the low-cost, high-
performance removable cartridge drives that have swept the industry. But, rather
quietly, M-0 technology has come back into vogue for certain applications, offering
very high capacities and an incredibly long storage life, which makes it popular for
long-term archiving.
At one point, these drives languished in capacities of only a few hundred
megabytes, and historically they’re known for being very slow. Yet M-0 has come
into its own recently. Now, transfer rates approach those of hard drives and high-
end removable cartridge drives, with many M-0 drives in the 1-4 MBps range.
Capacities are ranging upward too, with popular M-0 drives offering capacities of
230MB, 640MB, 2.6GB, and 4.6GB. Popular drive vendors include Pinnacle Micro
(WWW. pi nnaclemicro.com) and APS Technologies (www . apstech . com).
Magneto-optical, like nearly any other drive technology designed for Macintosh,
offers SCSI and Fast SCSI implementations. You’ll usually find the drives in external
casing but can occasionally come across an internal version. Although they
certainly are rivaled by the increased appearance of CD Rewritable solutions, M-0
will probably be around for quite some time, thanks to increased capacities and
speed improvements.
Tape drives
Consider, if you will, the two reasons to buy a tape drive for your backup solution —
and the two reasons to avoid tape backup at all costs. These days, tape drives are
being designed to hold amazing amounts of data in a single cartridge. In certain
implementations, tapes can hold 30-, 40-, or 70GB of data. Tape cartridges are
traditionally very cheap, too, offering data backup at pennies per megabytes.
Now the cons. Tape is slow, slow, slow. And, along with being slow, it’s a near-line
solution, meaning it doesn’t actually appear as a drive on your computer. That is, it
dosen’t pop up on your Mac’s desktop like a Zip, Jaz, or M-0 cartridge will. Instead,
you have to use special software to save your data to tape.
Tape can’t reasonably be used to transfer data between computers, because, by
necessity, it has to write all its data sequentially. This means, as with a cassette
tape of music, you have to fast forward through the tape to find a particular file or
document. If you wanted to quickly share, say, five different documents with a
colleague, you’d have to wait quite a while as the tape skipped around to various
sections to find the documents and retrieve them.
But that’s really not what tape backup is about. Instead, it’s an inexpensive media
for last-ditch, offsite backup storage — the type of backup that’s done
Chapter 9 -f Removable Drives and Backup ' 2.^1
automatically, late at night, and then filed away in a fireproof box the next day so
that the network can be recovered some time in the future if something
dramatically bad happened.
So, how do you add tape? Here are the three major tape formats you might concern
yourself with:
4 QIC. The popular standard for inexpensive backups is QIC technology.
Pronounced “quick,"’ QIC is an impressive-sounding acronym until you realize
it stands for “quarter-inch cartridge,” after which maybe you’re not so
impressed. But QIC’s various standards (ranging from QlC-40 to QIC-3220)
enable you to use tapes that store up to lOGB. Some innovative drive makers
have sped these drives up, too, resulting in throughput of 20 or 30 megabytes
per second. Not bad.
4 DAT. Digital audio tape is popular for backups as well as for high-end audio
recording. Transfer rates aren’t barn burners, usually hovering around 0.5
MBps. The tape capacities range from a few gigabytes to 12GB or more, with
data compression as a popular option. Lastly, although good and relatively
speedy, DAT drives are expensive and have stayed that way for a number of
years.
4 DLT. Digital linear tape is changing the tape game a bit, offering huge
capacities and high (2.5 MBps) speeds. Capacities for these sorts of drives
range from 20GB to 70GB with the media costing around a dollar per gigabyte
or less. This is truly one of the best ways to back up entire workgroups and
servers with a hands-off system of automated software and safe physical
storage. But it’s also the ultimate in expensive backup systems, often doubling
the price of already costly DAT drives.
Adding a Removable Media Drive to
Your Mac
Attaching most external removable media drives to your Mac is a cakewalk,
especially if you have experience adding a scanner or external hard drive. The
only exceptions occur when the drive you’re using isn’t particularly designed to
work with a Macintosh or offers less-than-stellar software drivers. Most of the
popular removable cartridge drives rarely suffer from such deficiencies, and, in
fact, many of them can be used as startup drives or even be used to read DOS-
formatted media directly.
You may also decide that you’d prefer to install an internal removable device.
Aside from not taking up space on your desktop, an internal upgrade has the added
advantage of being able to access the faster internal SCSI buses on newer Macs.
This will go a long way toward making your removable drive feel as though it offers
speeds that rival a hard drive.
238 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Adding an external removable media drive
External removable media drives attach to the SCSI port on the back of your Mac.
(In the case of an iMac or similar USB-equipped Mac, you may find an external drive
designed to hook up to a USB port. Chapter 10 explains USB in more detail.)
Depending on the Mac model, you may need an adapter — in general, the
removable drive will include a cable or adapter that connects to the standard 25-
pin SCSI port on the back of most Macs. (50-pin Fast SCSI and 64-pin Wide SCSI
ports may also be supported by the removable drive and are desirable for best
performance.)
To install an external drive:
1. Unpack the drive and check for all the necessary parts. Pay close attention to
any cards or inserts that the manufacturer installs in the drive for shipping
(check your manual carefully). You’ll need to remove any of these retaining
devices before you turn on your drive.
2. Using the Apple System Profiler or a similar SCSI probe tool, check to ensure
you have a free SCSI ID available for the drive (see Figure 9-5). (Remember to
select the correct bus if you have both an internal and external SCSI bus in
your Mac.)
To access the SCSI device information in the Apple System Profiler, choose Selected
Device Information from the program's menu bar.
Figure 9-5: The Profiler shows that SCSI ID 5 is
available on my Mac's SCSI bus.
Chapter 9 ^ Removable Drives and Backup 239
3. Change the SCSI ID on the back of your drive to the ID number you’ve
identified as available in your Mac (see Figure 9-6).
Figure 9-6: Most external removable media devices have a SCSI
indicator with an up and a down button for changing SCSI IDs.
4. Turn off your computer. Apple and other Mac peripheral companies
recommend that you never have your computer on when installing or
uninstalling SCSI devices.
5. Decide where you’ll be installing the drive in your SCSI chain. (If this is your
only external SCSI device, skip to step 6.) If you have another external device,
for instance, decide whether you’ll be installing this drive using the existing
device’s SCSI port or if you’ll be plugging your new drive directly into your
Mac. Remember that you should only have one terminator at the end of your
SCSI chain, so don’t allow more than one of your external devices to be
terminated.
6. Plug the SCSI cable into the SCSI IN port on the back of your removable media
drive (see Figure 9-7). If it doesn’t have a port specifically labeled SCSI IN, you
can likely use either port.
240 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
7. Plug the other end of the SCSI cable into your Mac, or plug it into the next
SCSI device in your SCSI chain if you have other devices.
8. If this removable drive is the last device in your SCSI chain, you’ll need to
terminate it. Either add a terminator to its SCSI OUT port, flip the termination
switch, or, if the drive offers auto-sensing termination, do nothing at all. (Don’t
forget to remove or deactivate any terminators you’ve installed or activated
on devices installed earlier in the chain.)
9. Plug the drive into an electrical socket (preferably a surge protector).
10. Turn on the drive and wait for it to spin up. (It should flash its lights, make a
little noise for a moment or two, and then calm down.) If your drive has no
power switch, skip to 11.
1 1. Start up your Mac.
12. With the Mac activated and the drive on, install any software that came with
the drive. You may need to restart your Mac.
To test the installation, you can probably insert the appropriate cartridge for your
new drive and see if it mounts the cartridge on your Mac’s desktop in the Finder. If
it does, all went well. (You may have to format the media cartridge before it will
work properly.) If you don’t see the drive, check the Apple System Profiler to make
sure it’s been mounted using the SCSI ID number you expected. If it has, and the
drive still doesn’t work, consult your manual for any specifics this drive requires.
chapter 9 ^ Removable Drives and Backup 241
If your drive doesn't appear to be mounted, you can troubleshoot it as you would
any SCSI device:
^ Visually inspect the SCSI ID setting to ensure it’s set for the expected number.
If it isn’t (or if it’s set for an ID number that is already taken in your Mac), shut
down immediately, change the ID number on the drive to an ID that’s available
in your Mac, and restart.
^ Check the cable connection to your device and check all the cable
connections in your SCSI chain.
4* Make sure only the last device in an external SCSI chain is terminated.
If the drive still won’t work, consult your drive’s manual and check some of the
other SCSI troubleshooting tips in Chapter 23.
Adding an internal removable media drive
You’ll notice that this process is very similar to installing an internal hard drive.
Usually the only difference is a removable media drive generally needs a full 5.25-
inch drive bay in your Mac OS computer. You’ll also need a special mounting kit for
most Mac models to make the slightly smaller facing of the internal drive fit flush
with the front of your computer.
Here’s a few things to know before you get started:
4- As with an internal hard drive, consider where exactly you’re putting the
drive on the internal SCSI chain. Make sure you have an available SCSI
connection on the ribbon cable, as well as an available power connection
inside your Mac.
4“ If you will be installing it in the middle of the SCSI cable that’s inside your
Mac, the drive should not be terminated. If it’s on the end of the SCSI cable,
you’ll need to terminate the drive, while making sure that no other drives
inside the Mac remain terminated.
4 You’ll also want to make sure the SCSI ID is set correctly on the internal drive.
Check the Apple System Profiler for an available ID, and then consult the
drive’s manual for instructions on setting the SCSI ID. (It’s likely set to SCSI ID
4 or 5, which should be fine if only the Mac’s original SCSI devices are
installed — unless the Mac already has a factory-installed removable drive.)
4 Make sure you have the appropriate mounting kit for your Mac model.
242 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Macs that can accept internal removable drives include the Performa 6400, Power
Macintosh 6500, 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600, 8600, 9600, G3 Desktop, G3 Minitower
and G3 Sen/er series, and subsequent full-size Mac desktop and minitower comput-
ers. Nearly all Mac OS clone models can accept an internal drive, if there's still a free
expansion bay in the case and the appropriate power and SCSI connectors are avail-
able inside- just be sure to order the correct mounting kit for your particular Mac or
Mac clone model when you buy the drive. Some expandable Quadra-level machines
might have room for a removable drive if they don't already have an internal
CD-ROM drive, as the minitower machines (Quadra 840AV, 950, and so on) should
support an internal removeable drive, assuming you can find a mounting kit and front
bezel to fit that model.
To install an internal drive:
1. Make sure your Mac is shut down and unplugged, and you’re electrically
grounded. Remove the Mac’s case.
2. Install the mounting hardware on the drive so it can slide into its drive bay.
3. Slide the drive into its bay.
4. Connect the SCSI cable to the drive. Make sure you orient the cable correctly,
with the red strip on the SCSI cable lining up with Pinl, the leftmost pin on the
connector.
5. Connect the power wires to the drive. They can only install in one direction,
so if you have trouble plugging the connector into the drive, try flipping it
over.
6. Make sure the drive is firmly seated in its bay, and then install the mounting
kit’s faceplate so that it’s flush with the front of the case (see Figure 9-8).
7. Start up your Mac and install any software that came with the drive. Restart
the computer if necessary.
Now insert a cartridge to test the drive. If things don’t seem to be working, check
your manual, the troubleshooting tips at the end of the section “Adding an external
removable media drive,” or most of Chapter 23.
As when installing any internal device, you can test the drive with the Mac's case still
off, but shut your Mac down again and replace the case once you're sure everything
is working.
chapter 9 ^ Removable Drives and Backup 243
Figure 9-8: The front plate fits around the front of the removable
drive to provide an opening for inserting cartridges (shown is an
internal Zip drive).
Implement Your Backup Plan
Here’s a true story: While working in the science department at my alma mater after
graduation, a major outage occurred on the administration’s server computer (an
Intel-compatible PC) during a fairly stormy weekend. Perhaps due to a lightning hit
or some similar electric shock issue, the main hard drive in the server went
completely dead. The data on it, barring an incredibly expensive excavation, was
irretrievable.
Of course, we had a backup. The system administrator had diligently run a tape
backup program weekly on the server over the past year since its installation, and
the process was going strong. A cartridge of all our data existed. This was not just a
tragedy, but an opportunity; our system administrator, the consummate
professional, had done the right thing and was likely going to impress the dean and
high-ranking academics. Foresight had won over chance.
Actually, chance had another card up its sleeve. As it turns out, the tape cartridge
that the system administrator had used for the most recent backup (about four
days old) was bad. He couldn’t get any data from it. To make matters worse, he had
244 Part II 4- Perfoiming the Upgrade
done something that isn’t exactly recommended — he’d used that same cartridge
for all his backups in the department for the last nine months. That’s nine whole
months.
Hard drives can (and eventually will) go bad. It’s an engineering fact — they’re
mechanical devices with a limited lifespan. But tape and other backup devices can
also go bad. In our science department, anything that wasn’t saved on individual
hard drives was forcibly reverted to files and folders that had been backed up nine
months prior to that time. Entire projects, budgets, file entries and papers were
lost. There was a backup plan in place, but it wasn’t a terribly good one. Instead, it
only provided a false sense of security.
Note
DriverSavers (www. dri vesavers.com) is a company that's renowned for its ability
to revive destroyed drives. If you're ever in a situation where you have to get data off
a drive that's been waterlogged, burned, dropped, run over, or exposed to any other
fury of nature, contact Drivesavers and see what they can do. A bullet-proof backup
plan is a lot cheaper, though.
What to back up
You don’t have to back up everything on your hard drive. After all, in most cases
(especially those where you’ve legally bought and licensed your software) you
won’t need to back up applications, because you have the originally floppy disks or
CD-ROMs. You also may not need to back up the System Folder, because you have
your Mac OS CD handy and you could, in a pinch, reinstall the operating system.
So what do you need to back up? Of course, you should consider backing up
absolutely everything on your hard drive(s) or network. (See sidebar that follows
for some interesting ideas.) But if you just can’t spare the space, here’s what you
should make a point of backing up:
4 Documents. Anything you create using your hands and your brain should be
backed up. Likewise, back up anything anyone else has created that’s saved
on your hard drive. You don’t want to have to recreate the documents if you
lose your main hard drive.
4 Upgrades and updates. You’ll likely download upgrades and updates to your
existing software programs at times when you find something new on the
manufacturer’s Web site. Make a point of quickly dragging those files to a
handy Zip or Sy.let cartridge while you’re busy installing them. This includes
new extensions, control panels, and fonts you install in the System Folder.
4 Bookmarks. If you use your Web browser extensively, make a point of backing
up the Bookmarks file that’s in that browser’s folder in the Preferences folder,
which is located in the System Folder.
Chapter 9 4* Removable Drives and Backup 245
4 E-mail. If you’re like me, you like to keep your old e-mail. It allows you to root
around for an old phone number, keep a paper trail of communications, and
dig up that Web address someone sent you once. 1 keep hundreds of
megabytes of e-mail saved, and I back it up (and archive it) regularly so I don’t
miss a beat.
4 Preferences. It won’t kill you to lose these, but you might want to back up the
preference files for your favorite applications — especially if you’ve got them
set just right. Preferences are in the Preferences folder in the System Folder.
4 Saved Games. Do you want to start over on level one? I thought not.
How to back up
Two different backup terms get bandied about often and deserve definitions. Not
everyone uses these terms as strictly defined as I’m suggesting here, but it’s how I’ll
try to use the terms in this book:
4 Backing up. By this I mean copying files currently on your Mac or your
network to another type of media on a regular basis, according to a
predefined system that rotates the backup media over a fixed period of time.
Backups are created using either a mirroring system (where an exact copy of
your folders and documents is copied to the backup media) or an incremental
system (where only folders and documents that have changed since the last
backup session are copied to the backup media).
4 Archiving. In this case, I’m talking about copying files from your hard drive or
network to another media, with the intention of deleting the files from your
hard drive and storing the archival media in a safe place. This is useful for
holding onto older files that you no longer need on a day-to-day basis, but
may need down the road.
Obviously, both have their place. But the single most common error in backing up
data is what I described happened in my alma mater’s science department —
archiving when one means to back up. A lot of programs that call themselves
backup programs will perform something very convenient for you — incremental
backups. They’ll only update files that have changed since the last time you
archived. This is a great feature but, by itself, is neither archiving nor a complete
backup system.
246 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Evangelista tip: Self-extracting System Folder
It's true that the most important files to back up on your Mac are data files, as you can't
recreate them without hours of work once they're gone. And, if you're into economy back-
ups, you can usually skip things like applications and the System Folder. They can be rein-
stalled from disks and installation CD-ROMs.
But backing up those files, too, really isn't such a bad idea, especially if there's a decent
chance that your Mac could get messed up -whether it's on public display, used in a lab
setting, or if you tend to install a bunch of beta software. System administrator Rich Barron
(from both the CSU Fullerton -Art Department and Santa Ana College in Southern
California) has a great tip — use the self-extracting archive option in the programs Stuffit Lite
or Stuffit Deluxe to create an archive that can open itself on most any Mac in your organi-
zation, resulting in a ready-made System Folder:
"I do a normal install on the Mac. I run it through its paces in all the programs and work out
all the glitches I catch. Next I take the System Folder and make a duplicate that I compress
and turn into a self-extracting archive (.sea) so it Is not dependent on Its 'mother' program
to help it uncompress. I also make a very stripped-down version (few extensions, no fonts,
few control panels, and so on) of the same System Folder. The remaining software is also
compressed program by program in the same .sea format."
You might also find that the program ShrinkWrap, from Aladdin Systems (www.aladdin-
sys.com), is a useful way to create System folder backups; instead of self-extracting
archives, you can create disk images that you can double-click and mount on the desktop,
causing them to act exactly like large floppy disks that you can then install or copy files from.
Use the Zip disk as a Startup disk (§€-Option-Shift-Del keys can be used together to skip the
Internal hard drive and boot off an external system disk), and then copy the compressed
System Folder to the newly formatted (or othenA/ise repaired) hard drive. Double-click to
decompress the System Folder, and then restart. You should have a new system, ready to
let you get some work done. (The second half of this tip, including information for restoring
systems for Mac workgroups, can be found in Chapter 33.)
If you just continue to mirror the changes you make on your hard drive onto a
single backup cartridge, you can’t use that cartridge to retrieve a document that
became corrupted or was inadvertently deleted a few weeks ago, as you could if
you created an archival tape or cartridge, and then stored it away. At the same
time, incrementally copying updated files to the same cartridge isn’t a proper
backup system, either, because a flaw in the cartridge itself negates any advantage
to performing the backup.
Chapter 9 ^ Removable Drives and Backup 247
In a serious backup situation, you need a generational approach to copying your
data from your hard drive(s) or network to the backup media. Depending on your
level of paranoia you can introduce as many generations as you want into the
equation. The bottom line is you always need to have more than one backup to
choose from at a given moment.
Aladdin Systems seems to offer a lot of software entries in this category, but I've got
another one to discuss. Although it's not technically a backup utility, you may find
FlashBack (wwv/ . a 1 addi nsys . com) to be convenient for archiving different versions
of the same document, allowing you to move backward through your document's dif-
ferent saves to find a version you like more. Other utilities, like Michael Kamprath's
Super Save (wv/w . kamprath . net/cl ai reware) will actually save each keystroke
you make in text documents, enabling you to pour back through them to recreate
documents if necessary. (It helps to be a great typist, naturally.)
A generational system
Here’s how a three-generation backup system would work. You start with three
different cartridges. One Monday, mirror your hard drive or network to the first
cartridge. On Wednesday, mirror your hard drive to the second cartridge. On
Friday, mirror the drive to the third cartridge. Now, a good idea would be to drop
the Monday cartridge out of the rotation and store it away (offsite, in a fireproof
casing, in a safe deposit box, and so on). You might do this once a week or once a
month, depending on how many cartridges you feel safe using.
Next, with a new cartridge, mirror your drives on Monday. When Wednesday rolls
around, do your mirroring on the Wednesday cartridge; on Friday, mirror over the
Friday cartridge. And so on. (Note that these Wednesday and Friday backups could
be incremental, too, but for the sake of this example they’re all fresh, complete
mirroring backups.)
Notice what you’re doing here. Every other business day, you have a fresh new
backup. If the network fails on Thursday, you can back up using the Wednesday
cartridge — if the Wednesday cartridge is no good, you can try the Monday
cartridge. Plus, you’ve got an extra little bonus — those archival cartridges that
slipped out of the rotation. If suddenly you find a corrupt or virus-infected file, then
you have the option of fishing through your archives for a copy that wasn’t
corrupted, even if the corruption happened weeks ago.
248 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Obviously, if you're not backing up incredibly important business files or an entire
network, you might be able to get away with backing up once or twice a week. But
seriously consider being vigilant about backing up, even if it's only a home system.
Your Quicken data or salary spreadsheet can change a lot in few weeks, and I guar-
antee you'll appreciate having that data backed up if you ever run into trouble. At the
very least, home users should set a weekly or semi-weekly alarm to remind them to
backup to a removable cartridge drive. Just remember to use a fresh cartridge every
few weeks and use the old one as an archive.
A software approach
If you’re a system administrator or in a similar position of responsibility, your first
order of business should be to think seriously about your backup issues. You will
probably also want to grab some software to help you out. Retrospect, from Dantz
Corp (WWW .dantz . com), is among the most popular for Mac users and networks
(see Figure 9-9). For other levels of users, Dantz offers Disk Fit Pro and Disk Fit
Direct, for backing up the individual Macs of professional and personal users,
respectively. Disk Fit Direct tends to be bundled with removable media drives —
check the product material if this interests you.
Restore
R«crMl«
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haktan
Run a SC
Or make
Retrospect Directory
Volume Selection „
I Source Volumes for Dacldjp...
Volimci mtfiu tor moro funetiortx)
V Q Local Desktop
c=> Document s
P
c=Utimies
czj Windows
> © Network Clients
^ Q Source Groups
I Cancel | || OK
[ Subvolume.> |
Figure 9-9: Retrospect offers industrial-style backup capability
for networks and server computers.
If you feel you’d like to work up to professional-level software, or if you’d like to
give something a bit cheaper a try, you might look into a shareware solution. Be
aware that the shareware author may not offer any guarantees about the usefulness
or accuracy of the software. (Then again, most big companies don’t either.) You can
try some of the downloadable options or grab one or two off the CD. One I’ve found
useful is called Drag ‘n’ Back.
Chapter 9 4 - Removable Drives and Backup 249
On the
CD
Drag'n'Back and Drag'n'Back Lite (with fewer features) are located on the CD-ROM
included with this book.
Drag’n’Back offers two options that you’ll find on the pro-level software, too — the
ability to update incrementally and the ability to update using an archival system
(see Figure 9-10).
Droo*nBdck.CAT
rWB AiVfw I I0;2 v2.0 6 SCSI ID5(S.Q 3)
Documents |Z1p lOOV]
file: DesktopPrlnters DB
folder
modified: Thu. 1 1 26 I B AM. 1 0/ 2/ 1 997
file size: 286
[g] □ Delete
□ Shred
□ link
Please Insert the destination disk, or click atthe drop down
menu to select the destination disk then click the OK button.
I Next J
I Cancel j
Figure 9-10: Drag'n'Back offers a shareware solution
to professional backup issues.
Incremental updates
In fact, most backup programs offer the ability to update incrementally. Remember,
incremental updates add only the files that have changed since the last time the
data was mirrored to the cartridge in question. It’s okay to use this feature as long
as you continue to swap cartridges in a generational pattern. Consider the following
scenario (which assumes you’ve already been backing up for at least a week):
1. You do a full backup to a new cartridge on Monday the 6th (of a particular
month).
2. You change an important file on Tuesday.
3. On Wednesday the 8th, you do an incremental backup to the Wednesday
cartridge. This cartridge was last updated on Wednesday the 1st, so the
changed file (on Tuesday the 7th) is noted and backed up.
4. On Friday the 10th, you do an incremental backup to the Friday cartridge. The
change has occurred since last Friday (the 3rd), so it is noted and backed up
here as well.
Now, if you have pulled the cartridge used on Monday and replaced it with a new
one for the next Monday, you’ll have an old copy of the file (the one that was
recorded on the 6th), and two new copies of the program (on the 8th and the 10th).
Both bases are covered — if a user needs the older copy of the file, you have it. If
250 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
they lose the newer version. youVe got that, too. If you’re the system administrator
for a large network, eventually you’ll be a hero.
Caution Don't get too cocky, though. Remember one last warning. Test your media regularly,
especially if you're using it over and over again. Even those Wednesday and Friday
cartridges (or whatever days you ultimately settle on) should be checked every few
weeks to see If they can really be used to restore data. If you do run into trouble and
need to restore data, you'll be glad you've tested your updates recently.
Evangelista and Expert tips: Thou shaft back up
As you might imagine, Evangelistas and experts alike have plenty of horror stories resulting
in lapses in their backup routines. Here's a quick look at some of the best of those, includ-
ing some times for quick and better backups— plus the requisite scare tactics to get you to
promise yourself that you'll implement a backup plan:
"Obviously, you'll want to back up your data regularly, but why back up corrupted files? Just
before doing a backup, run your diagnostic tools, such as Tech Tool Pro or Norton Utilities
for a bootable disk. Repair all broken files, and then do your backup. That way, you'll know
that you have a clean backup."- Win Stiles
'"I Lost My Entire Thesls...and it was due two hours ago!' Losing an important document is
a common complaint among McGill students and faculty. As Murphy's Law would have it,
the likelihood of losing a paper is directly proportional to the importance it bears to the
author and inversely proportional to the number of backup copies the user has made.
"Here are several points to keep in mind: Hard disk drives are typically warranted for a max-
imum of five years. It's not a matter of if they fail, but when they fail.
"Each time your computer hangs, freezes, or crashes, there's a good chance that at least
one file on your computer is slightly corrupted, and an even better chance that it's one of
the files that you were just working on.
"Accidents happen, like saving another document with the same filename or inadvertently
putting your file in the trash. Why tempt fate? You only have so much time to waste on
recovering your thesis when it was due two hours ago. Why not do your best to prevent the
situation from ever happening? It's not difficult and it only takes minutes to do. The Golden
Rule: Always have a backup of your work. Consider the effort of backing up versus the effort
of retyping or rewriting your entire thesis when it was due two hours ago."— James A.
Connolly, McGill University Computing Centre
(continued)
Chapter 9 ^ Removable Drives and Backup 251
(conlinued)
"Backing up doesn't need to be complicated. With at least two physical hard drives, you can
back up just the data partition to the other drive. That way if one drive dies, you've still got
the data on the other. It won't help if your house burns down, but the backup tape on your
shelf wouldn't help then, either." -Marc Zeedar
Want some more expert advice on backing up? Craig Issacs from Dantz Corporation (the
same folks that make Retrospect and Disk Fit) has a few choice tips for people putting
together their backup plans. He tells me his one hope is that you will be encouraged to cre-
ate a backup of your data before attempting any upgrade or fix. Here are his top tips:
Automate your backups. Get a backup device that holds about twice as much as your
hard disk so you can schedule backups for times when you're not there.
Back up every hard disk. Every hard disk contains critical data so don't just back up
servers. And make sure you include portable computers.
Back up more than just documents. Don't limit backups to just certain files -you'll
inevitably need one that wasn't backed up. Good backup software only backs up files
that are new or modified.
Moke several copies. Make at least three different sets of your data. Even an old copy is
better than no copy at all.
Keep a backup set offsite. You never know when a fire, flood, theft, or earthquake
makes your offsite copy your only copy.
Verify your backup. You need confidence in your backups. Make sure your backup
software has full read-back verification. And try restoring a few files yourself, just in
case.
Implement a network backup strategy. If you're on a network, network backup
software lets you share a storage device and ensures every Macintosh is backed up.
Don't procrastinate. Far too many new Dantz customers are people who recently lost
data. Develop your backup plan now!
Summary
4- Removable media drives have become very popular among all sorts of Mac
owners in the past few years, in part because of breakthroughs in their speed,
capacity, and usability. These days, little cartridges store hundreds of
megabytes or even gigabytes of data, but they work pretty much like a regular
hard drive.
252 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
> Removable cartridge drives come in many shapes and sizes, including the
incredibly popular Iomega Zip drive and the equally famous Jaz and SyQuest
SyJet drives. Other drives offer even more capacity and faster access.
Although removable cartridge drives are easily the most popular, they aren’t
the only type of drives on the market. Magneto-optical and tape-backup
technologies are equally as viable for certain tasks.
4 Once you pin down the sort of removable media drive you’d like to use, you’ll
want to install it. Both internal and external drives exist, so pick your versions
and install away. Be warned, though, that installing these drives never fails to
involve the magical world of SCSI.
4 With the drive in place and working properly, you’re ready to start backing up
your Mac or your workgroup. To do that requires some forethought and a
smart plan, as well as an awareness of the terminology. Of course, new
software won’t hurt, either.
4 4 ^ 4
Input Devices
APT
S o far we humans haven’t perfected the “Computer! I’d
like tea. Earl Grey — hot!’’ sort of speech-recognition that
the Star Trek characters are able to use when dealing with a
computer. We’re getting close, though, and it sure won’t take
400 years to get to that point, either. Of course, it isn’t
completely clear that voice command is necessarily the
perfect interface (in all cases) for dealing with computers,
because we already have plenty of talking going on in the
office and down in the academic computer lab. Until we do
come up with something better, then, we’re forced to focus on
the input tools we have — different types of mice, keyboards,
trackpads, and touch-sensitive devices.
Every Mac comes with a mouse, and, aside from a bizarre
period of cost-conscious years in the early 1990s, all Macs
come with keyboards. These are the basic means that we use
for communicating directly with the Mac OS. But there are
other ways.
If you’ve never explored the different options available to you
for input, you may be missing out on something special. I
personally enjoy using a trackball for my daily mousing needs,
and the one 1 have offers extra programmable buttons I can
use for a variety of tasks. In Mac OS 8 and above, the
operating system will actually respond to two different sorts
of mouse clicks (a regular click and a Ctrl+click) that can be
programmed into some mice to make the process more
convenient. My mouse has still another button which, when
pressed, pops up a quick-and-easy application switching menu
that lets me change the current application without heading to
the Application menu (see Figure 10-1).
4 4 4
In This Chapter
Apple Desktop Bus
explained
Types of input
devices
Installing an input
device
Using Intel-
compatible input
devices
^ 4
254 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Figure 10-1: Using a programmable Kensington Turbo Mouse, Tm able to bring up a
custom menu that enables me to switch between programs.
First, let’s discuss how the Mac’s input/output technology, the Apple Desktop Bus,
works. I’ll then move on to choosing and installing input devices.
The Apple Desktop Bus
The Apple Desktop Bus (usually redundantly referred to as the ADB bus) is another
one of those fabulously simple and useful innovations on the Mac side of the
computing arena that hasn’t taken off with Intel-compatible PCs. ADB has many
similarities to SCSI, as it is a peripheral bus architecture that enables you to daisy
chain devices together, allowing them to all communicate with the Mac as
necessary. ADB has something else in common with SCSI: it’s an asynchronous bus,
meaning data can be sent back and forth between devices and the Mac at any time
— the device simply requests the Mac’s attention, and then proceeds to send the
data once it has received the go-ahead.
Chapter 10 -f Input Devices 255
ADB is dissimilar to SCSI in one notable way: It’s very, very slow. According to
Apple’s specifications, the ADB bus transmits at 154 bytes per second. (Compare
that to a 5MB per second maximum on the slowest SCSI bus.) ADB offers very little
bandwidth to data, communicating serially — that is, one data bit at a time. This
isn’t usually a problem, because ADB is used to hook up fairly simple devices, such
as keyboards and mice, that don’t need to communicate a ton of complex data. It
does mean, though, that there’s a practical limit to the number of devices you can
hook up to the ADB port, although that’s mitigated somewhat by the fact that it’s
difficult to use more than two input devices at once. (Just try it.)
ADB is certainly capable, though. Most recent Macs have a single ADB port,
although Mac II and Centris/Quadra models, among others, often offered two
ADB ports. Both are on the same bus, however, and most ADB devices offer more
than one ADB connection, so you can daisy chain the devices to one another (see
Figure 10-2).
Figure 10-2: A daisy chain of input devices: An ADB mouse hooked
up to the Mac, ultimately, via its attachment to an ADB keyboard
The ADB cable uses a 4-pin DIN connector on both sides for connecting devices to
the Mac or to each other. No specific termination is necessary to make the devices
work correctly, although you may run into a practical termination — ADB devices
that don’t thoughtfully provide a second ADB port. In these cases, you may have to
rearrange your devices so that the single-port device is at the end of your chain.
ADB connections
256 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
You may also notice the tendency in the Mac world for some manufacturers to use
the ADB port as a source of power for their other, reasonably unrelated, devices.
Modems are a prime candidate: some models not only plug into the modem port to
communicate with the Mac, they also plug into the ADB port to draw a bit of power.
Usually a device that does this will also have a pass-through connector (see Figure
10-3). In these cases, you can connect your keyboard or mouse wiring directly to
the back of the pass-through connector to provide power.
Don’t think, however, that you can connect as many devices as you want with these
pass-through connectors. You’ll find there’s a practical limit of about three or four
devices — even though the theoretical limit is about 14 devices — on an ADB bus
before things start to get sluggish.
Figure 10-3: Some devices offer special ADB pass-through ports
for connecting other devices.
Apple warns that signal degradation could set in if you attach more than three ADB
devices to your Mac, although IVe personally worked with at least four with no
problems. If you do notice sluggishness or the occasionally lost character when typ-
ing, you might try working with fewer ADB devices connected to see if that solves
your trouble.
One other note about ADB connections — ADB connections are not hot-swappable,
meaning you need to turn the computer off before plugging and unplugging devices.
Although many Mac users report having no trouble connecting and disconnecting
devices while the Mac is still powered up, 1 can only tell you what Apple tells us:
This is not recommended.
Chapter 1 0 Input Devices 257
ADB numbers
Although it’s not terribly important in most cases, ADB, like SCSI, addresses its
devices with special numbers. These numbers enable the Mac to identify the
device that needs attention and listen for its input. As a user, it’s not something
you generally have to worry about. If prompted though, it can be useful to know
that the Mac keyboard is generally device number 2, whereas a mouse is usually
device number 3. (The occasionally third-party input device driver software has
been known to ask for this information.)
A couple of other numbers are important. The limit to the length of all your cables
should be about 5 meters, says Apple’s technical specs, which means you’ll need to
buy special add-on devices if you plan to use a keyboard and/or mouse any farther
away from your Mac than that. ADB devices (when added together) can’t draw
more than 500 milliamperes (mA) total for all devices. For comparison, Apple says
the Apple Standard Keyboard draws a maximum of 100 mA, and the Apple Extended
Keyboard draws a maximum of 85 mA. You can check the technical specifications of
your other ADB devices, and then add their consumption numbers together.
Input Devices
So what can you hook up using those ADB ports? Quite a lot, actually. Aside from
the typical input devices — mice, trackballs, keyboards — you’ll find some
interesting devices to consider purchasing. Input devices can range from graphics
pads, which enable you to input data using a pen, to touch screens, and even
special devices for the physically challenged.
Where do you find these devices? Obviously the local computer store only carries a
few different keyboards and mice, usually those that appeal to the widest audience
of people. For more specialized devices, you’ll often have to look around a little bit.
Try the Mac-based catalog vendors and their associated online services. Also,
specifically for Mac peripherals, check out some of these companies:
4* MacAlley (www.macal ly . com) makes a number of Mac ADB peripherals,
including keyboards, mice, touchpads, joysticks, and gamepads. It’s also a
good place to find storage devices, cables, and adapters for Macs.
> APS Technologies (wv;w . apstech . com) builds some peripherals, but they’re
also a catalog company and clearing house for special items such as advanced
mousing controllers, cables, and the like.
^ Adesso, Inc, (www .adessoinc. com) specializes in ergonomic keyboards and
mice for Macs and PCs.
258 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
4 Microspeed (www .mi crospeec . com) offers trackpads, mice, and Mac
keyboards.
4 Qtronix (wv/w . qt roni x . com) makes mice, trackballs, and unique keyboard
solutions with built-in mousing devices.
4 Kensington (v/v^w . kens i ngton . com), best known for trackballs, also offers
other accessories and mousing solutions.
Keyboard
The original Mac classic form factor usually went hand-in-hand with a smallish 58-
key keyboard that looked a whole lot like a disembodied typewriter. Later, Apple
made the transition to larger keyboards, including some middling designs, and
eventually adopted the typical form factor of today, the 104-key extended keyboard.
Nearly any Mac keyboard you buy these days includes a Power key in the upper
right-hand corner, function keys across the top of the keyboard, and a numeric
keypad on the right-hand side. That still gives manufacturers some room to play
with, so keyboards tend to come in all shapes and sizes.
Evangelista tip: Keyboards and ADB, susceptible
to static
Does the carpet in your office develop a pretty strong static electricity charge? If you live in
a dry climate and/or you notice you get little shocks when you touch the door knobs, filing
cabinets, or computer components in your workspace, you might need to take extra pre-
cautions to make sure you're not damaging computer equipment with static electricity.
Evangelista Tony Hines had this to say about his workplace and their creative solution:
"About two years ago, our ad agency moved into a freshly carpeted office space; we
promptly discovered that said carpet had a knack for developing strong jolts. After knocking
out two keyboards and one mouse, we knew we had to do something to get rid of the
static.
"We invested in two large humidifiers, but didn't notice much of a difference. Then, the guy
who maintains our phone systems passed along a tidbit that proved to be the ideal solu-
tion: fabric softener. No, we don't put fabric softener on our Macs. We simply bought a
large, cheap bottle of fabric softener at the local grocery store, and then mixed it half-and-
half with water in a spray bottle. About once a week, we spray the carpets in our offices,
and it works great Plus, the office carpets smell 'spring fresh'!"
chapter 10 -f Input Devices 259
Keyboard layouts
One thing you may already know about your Mac is its ability to support keyboard
layouts other than the standard QWERTY format to which English-speaking typists
have grown accustomed. If you use a keyboard with an international layout, you
can change many of the layouts using just the Keyboard control panel, as shown in
Figure 10-4, along with the menu bar-based layout switcher. (If your version of the
Mac OS is a localized one, you’ll probably see other options.)
Figure 10-4: Changing the way your Mac interprets the layout of a keyboard
One popular keyboard layout you might want to switch to is the Dvorak layout, a
1936 efficiency expert’s answer to the slow and somewhat injurious nature of the
QWERTY layout. What the Dvorak keyboard layout does is change the way your
keyboard’s keys are interpreted by your Mac to match that shown in Figure 10-5.
You don’t have to buy a special keyboard to implement this layout, although you
might find it handy to run to a crafts store and buy some alphabet stickers to put
on your existing keyboard’s keys.
You can find Joe's Dvorak layout, a keyboard layout file for the Mac, on the CD-ROM
included with this book. To install it, close all applications and then drag the file to the
System Folder. Click OK to add it to the System file. You can then change to the layout
in the Keyboard control panel.
260 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Keycaps
m imnii iinnra rninra rmTO
Figure 10-5: The Dvorak layout. Supposedly 70%
of the letters you type won't require you to move
your hands.
Although I’ve never used the Dvorak layout myself, I have colleagues who swear by
it. And frankly, after hacking out these hundreds of pages for your reading pleasure,
1 think I’ll look into something that gives my typing hands a little rest.
So how do you install a layout? All keyboard layouts reside in the Mac’s System file,
which is in the root level of the System Folder. To add a layout to the Keyboard
control panel, you need to drag and drop the layout file onto the System file. This
can also be accomplished (in System 7.5 and above) by dragging the layout file onto
the System Folder, which will automatically put the file in the System file for you.
Ergonomic keyboards
Other keyboards you encounter will offer the typical QWERTY layout, but feature a
more comfortable (or, to employ an overused buzzword, ergonomic) arrangement
of keys. Ergonomic keyboards are designed to place your hands in a more
comfortable, more scientifically correct posture than regular keyboards promote.
Often this is done by splitting the keys down the middle and elevating the wrists
slightly so that your hands curl over the top of the keyboard — the same position
you may have been taught in typing or piano classes in grade school.
Of major concern is the possibility that the repetitive nature of typing and mousing
(especially for the eight to ten hours a day that some of us spend doing it) will hurt
us in the long run if not done correctly. My best cidvice to you is to try new
keyboards, and don’t be afraid to spend some money on the right one. Again, go
with a store or mail-order house that offers a liberal return policy, and test the thing
intensively for a few days before settling on it conclusively.
other keyboards
There doesn’t seem to be a particular shortage of keyboard solutions, although
your selection may be limited to obvious choices in stores like CompUSA. Aside
from Apple’s basic-but-quality keyboards bundled with every Mac (such as the
Apple Design Keyboard) and sold as replacements, third-party vendors step in with
the occasional gadget or interesting add-on.
Chapter 10 -f Input Devices 261
Adesso, Inc., for instance, offers not only ergonomic keyboards, but also models
that enable you to use a trackpad or small joystick-like pointer (centered on the
keyboard) for mousing tasks. Visioneer has, in the past, made a Mac keyboard that
included a page scanner for quick document scanning tasks. Still other keyboards
have been made for special purposes, including those suited for point-of-sale
computers or single-handed operation. For Macs that lack them (such as those with
classic form factors and PowerBooks), you can get add-on ADB keypads for
entering numerical data.
Mousing
You probably don’t need a reprise of the whole story of how Apple came to think of
the computer mouse as an important component in computing, but suffice it to say
that they did and it is. (Steve Jobs and other Apple employees gained access to
Xerox’s PARC laboratories, where mousing and graphical interfaces were being
developed on computers that were destined to fail in the marketplace.) The mouse
and similar devices are an important part of how users deal with computers,
perhaps humanizing computers in a way that makes it easier to use them
productively.
Not that the original mouse was, by any means, the end of the line. Although
pointing devices remain basically subjective in their merits (you need to decide
for yourself what you like the most), the standard Mac mouse has a few obvious
drawbacks. For instance, it’s not a good idea to grab and hold onto a small slab of
anything for hours at a time (see Figure 10-6), because it’ll cramp your hand.
Figure 10-6: An early Mac mouse (Mac Plus) offers a number of
drawbacks, including sharp edges and a single button.
262 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Although Apple has, over the years, made various improvements to the basic
mouse Included with every Mac, it certainly hasn’t reached a satisfactory
stopping point. Many third-party companies have stepped up to fill in some of
the gaps, such as:
4 Size. Some mouse manufacturers and ergonomics experts argue that a larger
mouse is better than a smaller one, enabling you to drape your hand over the
mouse and guide it instead of clamping down on a smaller mouse with your
hand.
4 Shape. Ergonomically shapped mice are also in vogue, offering shapes that
work specifically for the left or right hand, supposedly to reduce stress on
your fingers, wrist, and/or arm.
4 Buttons. Although die-hard Mac users may argue that a one-button mouse
offers a simpler, more elegant interface, it’s also true that you can do a lot
more with a multibutton programmable mouse. The Mac OS is even starting to
support dual-button mice, in spite of the majority of Mac users having mice
with one button. (The Mac OS enables you to hold down the Ctrl key while
clicking the mouse button to access a second set of mouse button features.)
4 Wiring. Although of dubious value, some users enjoy spending a little extra
money to get a wireless mouse for their setup. Useful only in limited
circumstances, these mice at least offer the benefit of enabling you to place
them on a more comfortable surface.
The precision of a mouse or mousing device is measured in dots per inch (dpi). A
typical mouse has a precision of 200 to 400 dpi — anything less them that is too
little, and anything more than that is considered very precise. There are also three
basic types of technology used to create mice, some more common than others:
4 Mechanical. A mechanical mouse has a rubber ball that comes in contact
with the surface and rolls along with your movements. The sensors inside the
mouse in this case are mechanically — usually small rollers that detect the
direction and speed of the ball, moving the mouse pointer accordingly.
4 Optomechanical. This works the same way as a mechanical mouse — with a
ball and sensors — except that the sensors are optical, using light to detect
changes in direction and speed.
4 Optical. Optical mice are more rare (and more expensive). These mice use
only light to judge movements, usually reflected by a specially designed
mouse pad. Optical mice tend to be more precise than others, and are used in
computer-aided design and similar pursuits.
Chapter 1 0 4 - Input Devices 263
Trackballs and trackpads
Originally making their Mac debuts in PowerBooks, trackballs and trackpads have
mutated into popular desktop alternatives to the mouse. (Actually, early non-Apple
trackballs predated the PowerBook, although their popularity has grown in recent
years.) Although some people swear by them and some people swear at them,
trackballs get points for not forcing you to move your wrist in awkward directions
or stretch your arm while trying to make things happen on the computer screen. Of
course, the motions are still repetitive and the physical benefits are best left to
scientists to determine. My only advice is to pick a device you enjoy using (see
Figure 10-7).
Figure 10-7: Trackballs are my favorite for mousing, but only
because I'd prefer to keep my hand close to the keyboard. I find
mice to be more exact.
Trackpads are often found integrated with ergonomic keyboards like those offered
by Macally and Adesso. You’ll find some sold separately, though, including the Alps
Desktop Glidepoint series made by Cirque (www. gl i depoi nt . com). The MicroMac
trackpad from Microspeed (wwvy .mi crospeed . com), for instance, is smaller than a
mouse, hooks up to a standard ADB port, and works as a direct replacement for the
Mac mouse. (It also includes its own control panel for higher-precision control.)
264 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Programmable mice
IVe personally found a programmable mouse to be quite a useful add-on for my
day-to-day computing. With four buttons on my personal trackball (a Kensington
Turbo Mouse, although others are great, too), I can do an amazing number of
things: a single press of a particular button can bring up an application swapping
menu, or substitute for Ctrl-click or even a double-click. Silly as it may sound, you
do a lot of double-clicking on a Mac, and Tve found the added convenience of being
able to use a single click instead is worthwhile after many hours of mousing.
Of course, you can create your own behaviors for each button — that’s what
programmable means. Options include cursor focusing (switching to a window by
simply pointing at it), snap to default settings that automatically place the pointer at
the default OK or Cancel button in a dialog box, and many others for the buttons
cmd various button combinations (see Figure 10-8). One of my favorites: When I
click the two bottom buttons on my Turbo Mouse, the pointer is constrained to the
current axis, meaning it can only draw a straight line. That’s perfect for some of the
Web graphics work 1 do.
Figure 10-8: The only thing that bugs me about this
software is the user has to decide which functions to
use and which to pass on, because there are a limited
number of buttons.
Digitizers
Often called graphics tablets (at least by me they are), digitizers are designed to use
a pen-like device for input, translating that into a digital manipulation of the mouse
pointer. This opens up a whole world of possibilities to the casual user, as well as
providing a professional-level input device for artists and graphics professionals
who need precision control over a mouse pointer.
Chapter 10 -f Input Devices 265
Art isn’t the only application for these tablets. Although they’re great for drawing
and painting, they can be used to substitute for a mouse in any application. Adding
musical notation, controlling transitions in a multimedia presentation, or
annotating a PowerPoint slide are all possibilities.
Most graphics tablets are pressure sensitive, meaning they only draw when you
place the pen on the pad and begin to move it. Others have a powered pen that
only writes when a button is held down or turned on. The technology you choose
Is up to you, along with extra features (such as more sophisticated pens and
programmable buttons). You might also find some variance in resolution, although
even low-end digitizers tend to offer thousands of lines of resolution per inch. From
the low end (see Figure 10-9) to the very high end, digitizing products range from
hundreds to thousands of dollars in price. For instance, the SummaGraphics line of
digitizers (v;ww . cal comp . com) includes a monster tablet capable of 10,000 lines per
inch of resolution.
Figure 10-9: The CalComp UltraSlate (www.calcomp.com) is a small,
consumer-oriented art pad that’s a great substitute for the standard
Mac mouse.
One important caveat: Not all graphics tablets can use ADB to connect to your Mac.
Because the ADB port is limited in the amount of information it can transmit at one
time, a highly sophisticated graphics tablet will bog down the interface. In those
cases, most tablet manufacturers opt for a serial (modem/printer port) connection
instead.
266 Part II Performing the Upgrade
How sophisticated can they get? Wacom, makers of the popular ArtPad line of
digitizers, goes so far as to blur the lines between digitizer and touch screen with
one of their offerings, the PL-300 — an actual LCD screen that you can draw and
mouse on directly.
Touch screens
Maybe you’re already a multimedia professional or corporate IS type who knows
very clearly that you want a touch screen for a kiosk, electronic map or for kids to
use in schools. But, if you’re a bit more like me, you’re constantly just a little
amazed that this stuff is available to the general consumer — and, intriguingly
enough, at decent prices.
A touch screen can work a number of ways. The actual glass on a monitor can be
made to sense touch or pressure, as can a glass or plastic overlay. In other cases
the screen doesn’t directly sense touch or pressure; sensors pinpoint the area
someone touches on the screen, and the mouse pointer moves correspondingly.
Overwhelmingly, though, the affordable, consumer-level touch screens are those
that simply overlay a store-bought monitor. One such device, from Edm 2 u*k, is
actually somewhat inexpensive, as it’s designed more to appeal to parents and
teachers than high-end corporate types (see Figure 10-10).
Figure 10-10: This consumer-level
touchscreen is easy to add and a great
choice for parents of smaller kids. (Photo
courtesy Inc.)
Other touch screens are actual monitors, like those offered by PixelTouch
(WWW . pixel touch . com). These monitors range in size and technology, including
both CRTs and LCD screens. They feature not only monitor connections, but also
ADB connectors for transmitting the touch signals.
Other touch screen companies include the following:
4- ELO TouchSystenis (www. el otouch . com) makes a full range of touch screen
CRTs and LCD solutions, including comprehensive support for Mac OS. Their
Web site also features some other content, including tips for effective kiosk
presentation.
chapter 10 ^ Input Devices 267
4 TouchWindows (wwv/ . touchwi ndow . com) offers a number of different touch
screen products and add-ons.
4- KeyTec makes the MagicTouch series (www.magi c touch . com) of touch screen
add-ons and monitors that support Mac as well as Amiga and Intel-compatible
machines.
> MouseTouch (www .mouse touch .com) offers to integrate their system into
your existing monitor, and they sell LCD touch screens.
4 Information Display Systems (vavw . i di spl ay . com) features LCD touch
screens for business and kiosks.
> Troll Touch (www. trol 1 touch . com) makes cross-platform CRTs, LCD
screens, add-ons, and even screens for PowerBooks.
Special needs input/output
Not to be left behind are users who have special needs, whether physically
challenged or recovering from injury, who still need to use their Mac on a regular
basis. Products aimed at such users run the gamut from one-hand keyboards to
head-mounted pointer controllers and speech technologies for the sight impaired.
Maltron keyboards (www.mal tron . com), for instance, makes keyboarding products
that run the gamut, from highly ergonomic keyboards designed for people suffering
from repetitive strain injuries (RSI) to people with limited use of their hands. Single-
finger or mouth-stick keyboards are also available from the company.
Companies that make special needs products include the following:
^ Alva Access Group (www. aagi . com) makes the OutSpoken text-to-speech
program and products for the visually impaired.
4- Duxbury Systems (worl d . std . com/~duxbury /products . html) offers
braille translation products for Macintosh and other platforms.
4- Dragon System’s PowerSecretary (www . dragon sys . com) allows for speech-
to-text recognization for creating reports and memos.
> R.J. Cooper and Associates (www . r j cooper . com) creates software and
hardware solutions for a variety of challenges, including keyboards and
trackballs for individuals lacking fine motor skills.
> Synapse Adaptive (www. synapseadapti ve .com) sells sophisticated adaptive
products including the Synapse workstation, a speech-recognition computer
that acts as a go-between for the user and a Macintosh or other computer.
They also offer the Headmaster Plus, a hands-free pointing device that
switches between Mac and PC compatibility.
268 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Universal Serial Bus
An emerging standard seems bent on replacing the venerable ADB standard that’s
held sway over Mac peripherals for all these years — Universal Serial Bus (USB).
The USB standard is similar to ADB in many respects, although it blurs the line
between SCSI, serial connections, and ADB in an interesting way. The most
important statistic, USB’s 12 Mbps transfer speed, puts it right at about Ethernet
speeds, with all the convenience of ADB.
USB will be a replacement for a number of different data ports you’ve gotten used
to on your Mac, including the serial ports, ADB and, in some cases, SCSI. Although
Ultra SCSI and Firewire aren’t going away any time soon for high-end needs, USB
promises to be quick and easy enough for other traditional SCSI devices, such as
Zip drives and scanners.
The other advantage is USB is also an Intel-compatible standard, meaning a much
larger market of peripherals is likely to appear sporting USB connectors. From
there, all a vendor has to do is write Mac OS software drivers to make their USB
peripherals compatible with the iMac and other Macs that will support USB in the
future.
How USB works
In fact, USB may even be slightly more convenient than ADB. Aside from being
much faster, USB also supports up to 127 devices, if you use a USB hub. On the
iMac, the first Mac model to feature USB, the keyboard serves as a hub, enabling
you to add other devices either directly to the machine or by way of the keyboard.
This speed and convenience means USB can be used for peripherals other than
input devices — printers, scanners, and even external storage devices are already
planned for USB on Macs.
There are actually two different speed standards for USB, 1.5 Mbps and 12 Mbps,
although both can operate through the same hub at the same time. This enables
slightly less-expensive peripherals to use the slower speed for activities — such as
mousing and keyboarding — that don’t require much bandwidth.
It’s also worth pointing out that each USB port on the iMac (and presumably on
future Mac models that incorporate USB) each have full USB bandwidth (12Mbps)
at their disposal. This means that even if you had several USB devices humming
away on one port (for example, a scanner hooked up to the same port as your
keyboard and mouse), you could use the other USB port for more heavy-duty
requirements (such as an external removable media drive or a high-speed Internet
connection), and still get full 12 Mbps speeds through that second port.
Chapter 10 -f Input Devices 269
Although details aren’t yet available at the time of writing, the expectation is the
Mac OS will be updated to include a USB Manager, perhaps in the form of a control
panel, that will feature basic device driver services for USB-based peripherals. This
would mean you’d be able to hook up any PC-oriented keyboard or scanner and use
it — at a very basic level — with your Mac by plugging it into the USB port and
choosing one of the included drivers. Such a feature could apply to a number of
scanners, modems, and even printers that are based on Industry standards such as
TWAIN, Hayes-compatibility, and Postscript, respectively.
In other cases, USB peripheral manufacturers may need to write Macintosh-specific
drivers for their peripherals to work on Macs (or to ensure that their peripherals
are full-featured beyond the basic USB Manager driver services). This additional
work might keep some manufacturers from making their peripherals available to
the Mac market. Some manufacturers will make the leap, however, seeing that it’s
much easier to tap into the Mac market by creating a software driver than by
creating a hardware solution — such as different cabling for ADB, SCSI or the Mac’s
version of serial connections.
Hooking up USB devices
If your Mac model has USB ports, you should certainly consider using ADB if you
have older devices, but I’d opt for USB peripherals whenever it’s practical and
affordable to do so. The connections are about the same — just plug in the device,
load the Mac OS driver software, and start using the device.
USB features a four-pin connector that can only be inserted the correct way. There
are different cables for high-speed USB than for low-speed USB, so you need to
make sure you’re using the right cable for your device (the peripheral likely comes
with the correct cable, but you should take care when purchasing replacements).
The USB cabling carries power to USB devices, so low-power devices don’t need
their own external power supply (higher-powered devices will still need external
power). If you’re hooking up a number of USB peripherals, a powered hub is
recommended to service them all with USB-based power.
USB devices can’t be daisy chained the way that ADB devices are — each device
needs its own port. That means you either need to limit your USB upgrading to the
number of ports you have available, or you need to add a USB hub that allows you
to add more USB devices. On the iMac, for instance, the keyboard acts as a hub,
because it has two additional USB ports — one for the mouse, and another for a
second device. Taking into account the second port on the iMac’s side, a total of
two additional USB devices can be connected without the use of a special hub.
Indications are USB may be hot-swappable (meaning you don’t have to turn the Mac
off or put it to sleep to plug USB devices in) and reasonably free of voodoo.
Unfortunately, there’s not much I can say from personal experience, having only
worked briefly with USB devices on an Intel-compatible PC (where they weren’t yet
working very well). It’s just something we’ll have to watch.
II -f Performing the Upgrade
I'll try to keep up on the discussion regarding USB on the Mac-Upgrade Web site.
Check in for details at www .mac-upgrade.com/.
Installing Input Devices
For the most part, Macintosh input devices use the ADB port on the back of your
Mac’s case to communicate with your Mac. Installing them is simple: Using the
included cable or a standard ADB cable, you connect the device to the port. If you
have more than one ADB device (and 1 know you do!), you’ll want to daisy chain the
devices by plugging the second one into an available ADB port on the first device.
In some cases, you’ll need to switch the order of devices if the first one doesn’t
offer a pass-through port.
In all cases, you’ll want to power down your Mac first.
Here’s the procedure for installing an ADB device:
1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Find the ADB port on the back of your Macintosh or on any of the ADB
devices already plugged into the Mac. (The port should be labeled with the
ADB icon. You may also find that some Mac monitors offer ADB ports. Usually
these monitors need to be attached to the Mac’s ADB port; additional ADB
connectors are offered on the monitor standard for easier connection.)
3. Using an ADB cable, connect the new device to the available port.
4. Power up the Mac.
5. Install the software that came with the device. If it’s a keyboard format, you’ll
want to select it in the Keyboard control panel (or in the menu bar menu
created by the Keyboard control panel).
6. Test the device.
Remember to keep your ADB devices to a maximum of three or four; you may have
trouble with that many if any of your devices is particularly sophisticated (for
example, a digitizer or a touch screen.) If you notice sluggishness or if one of your
devices isn’t working properly, try disconnecting (after powering down your Mac)
one or more of the additional devices, power back up, and see if that improves the
device’s response. You’ll probably always need a keyboard connected, but you can
leave the mouse disconnected for a while if you’re using a touch screen, for
instance.
Chapter 10 ^ input Devices 271
In its Tech Info Library, Apple makes a point of saying ADB ports are not designed for
the repeated plugging and unplugging of peripherals. Although you're unlikely to
damage the ports in any way, they weren't designed, for instance, to have the mouse
plugged and unplugged on a daily basis.
Longer cables
If your keyboard mouse or other device doesn’t extend far enough away from the
computer, you may need to invest in an ADB extension cable. If you do, remember
your 5 meter limit to the ADB chain and pick the peripheral that would add the
least length to your chain while enabling you to connect the others.
An example is the AppleDesign Keyboard, which includes a hard-wired ADB cable.
By attaching the extension to your trackball (assuming it features two ADB ports),
and then attaching your keyboard to the trackball, you’ll be adding less overall
length to the ADB chain. This usually isn’t a problem with two basic peripherals,
but can cause degradation of the signal if you’ve installed more devices or if you’re
trying to get far away from the Mac.
For products that extend ADB and other Mac input cables by tens or hundreds of
feet, check out products like the ex*tend*it series of stand-alone and rack-mounted
devices from Gefen System (v/ww . gef en . com). These devices enable you to move
ADB devices hundreds of feet away and switch the same keyboard and mouse for
use with many different Mac OS computers.
Intel-compatible peripherals
Want to plug standard Intel-compatible peripherals into your Mac? In many cases
you can, with the right adapter. USR Systems (wvyw . us r . com) offers their
AppAdapter product, which enables Mac owners to plug in PS/2-style keyboards
and mice, translating the PS/2 commands into Mac ADB data.
Summary
4- Although it may one day be very common to use voice recognition to chat
with our computers, most of us continue to communicate with our Macs by
using pointing devices and keyboards. Within those categories, though, are
plenty of different options.
> Before you can attach input devices, though, you’ll need to know a little
something about the Mac’s Apple Desktop Bus — the technology used to
connect input devices to the Mac. It’s a flexible and easy-to-understand
system, but it does offer the power user some limitations.
272 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
> Once you know how you’ll be getting everything connected, take a look at the
different devices you can use. Input devices range from standard and
ergonomic keyboards to trackballs, touch screens, graphics tablets, and even
input solutions for the physically challenged.
4* Finally, you’re ready to connect the devices. Above all else is the golden rule:
Turn off your Mac before playing around with ADB devices, unless your Mac is
specifically equipped with hot-swappable ADB ports (in which case it’s just
plug and go).
4 ^ ^ ^
Scanners and
Digital Cameras
F or some crazy, inexplicable reason, using a scanner is a
lot of fun. Maybe it has something to do with the scanner
letting you take real objects and interact with images of them
on your computer screen. Maybe it’s because scanners can
make any of us feel like professional digital artists. Or, maybe
scanners hold for humans the same fascination that copying
machines do: You can make funny shadow scenes by pressing
various parts of your body to the glass and hitting the “on”
button.
Whatever the reasons, scanners are popular add-on
accessories for Macintosh computers. They’re made all the
more popular and easy to add because of the Mac’s built-in
support for SCSI; nearly all Mac-compatible scanners are SCSI-
based, with a few notable exceptions. Scanners also fare
reasonably well at external (“regular”) SCSI-1 speeds. You’ll
probably find that hooking up a scanner is simply a matter of
plug and go.
Digital cameras offer even more fun. If you’ve never shot
pictures without film, you’re in for an interesting experience.
And digital cameras have professional-level implications for all
sorts of different applications, from shooting houses for your
real estate Web site to shooting fashion for magazines and
catalogs. Personally, 1 haven’t picked up a regular camera in
six months, although I’ve used my digital camera to create
images that have appeared in all sorts of places: Web sites,
multimedia databases, magazine stories, and, yes, this book.
Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes, and are certainly
compelling add-ons for a number of different professional and
amateur applications.
Let’s begin by quickly discussing how a scanner works, and
look at the different types and quality of scanners you’ll
encounter. You’ll then see how to install a scanner. Also in this
chapter I’ll discuss how digital cameras create images, what
the various features of these cameras are, and how you’ll get
the images into your Mac.
4 ^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
How scanners work
Picking and installing
the scanner
Digital cameras
revealed
Using a digital
camera
♦
274 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
All About Scanners
Scanners create an image by passing a light along the surface of a piece of paper (or
similar object) while charged<oupled device (CCD) sensors follow behind it, picking
up the information and turning it into ones and zeros. The sensors determine how
much lighter and darker parts of the image are in relation to each other, giving the
scanner a sense of how dark a particular part of the image is.
Doing this, the scanner can create 'd grayscale scan, which results in a fairly true-to-
life, non-color image. For even faster scanning, the scanner can simply determine
which parts of the page are white, and which are not. This results in a true blach-
and-white scan, which might be useful for a page of text, a scan intended for faxing,
or a line-art drawing — something that doesn’t need the distinction of many
different levels of gray (see Figure 1 1-1).
Figure 11-1: An example of a black-and-white scan of line art, using a Visioneer
PaperPort scanner (www.visioneer.com)
Of course, you’ve probably heard that scanners can scan color images as well. How
do they do that? Instead of emitting a white light and then judging the dark and
light spots, the scanner emits colored light: red, green, and blue. (Some scanners
use a filter over the sensor Instead of a different colored light, but it’s pretty much
the same result.) The scanning software can then react to the different levels of
Chapter 1 1 4 Scanners and Digital Cameras 275
intensity on the page to determine how much of a particular color is present. It
then mixes the colors together and comes up with a final, full-color result.
Because color scanners use three colors, you’ll often come across three-pass
scanners. Each color gets its own chance to examine the image, whereupon the
scanner software pieces everything together. This can take some time, but it gets
good results. Of course, this also means it’s very important to correctly align the
document for each pass. If you move it slightly between passes, you’ll end up with a
patchwork final scan that probably will only somewhat resemble the original.
More recent scanners, however, turn the colored lights on and off quickly enough to
accomplish all that data gathering in one pass of the scanner head. This makes it
possible for scans to come out more quickly with the same amount of color
information. It also requires that the scanner be fairly efficient in how it deals with
data, because scanned images can take up megabytes of data at a time — a 24-bit
(millions of colors) image scanned at 300 dpi for low-resolution printing can take up
3 megabytes of storage space or more. Images scanned at much higher resolutions
for professional printing (for example, magazine advertisements or newspaper
inserts) can take up many times that amount of storage space.
Types of scanners
Scanners come in a number of different shapes and sizes, each with its own target
applications. Most often you’ll see flatbed scanners, especially if you’re wandering
around the Macintosh aisles of your local computer store. However, you can run
into a number of other types as well, including sheetfed scanners, handheld
scanners, slide scanners, and other specialty devices. Here’s a rundown of the
different types of scanners available:
Flatbed scanners. These are the most common variety of scanner, generally
resembling the top portion of a copier machine. By lifting the lid, you reveal a
glass surface onto which you place a document or similar item for scanning.
Of the scanners normally reserved for consumers and professionals, flatbeds
offer the best quality, the most color options, and the highest resolutions.
Handheld scanners. You won’t see many of these around anymore, as they
were really an answer to the costliness of flatbed scanners in the past. The
fact is, though, that a good flatbed scanner can be had for little over a
hundred or so dollars these days, so cost-cutting options aren’t as important.
For the record, handheld scanners are usually about 4 inches wide and
require that you roll them down the surface you’re scanning. It’s difficult to
get a perfect scan, because you need to hold the scanner very steady and
scan in a straight line.
'f Sheetfed scanners. More common, although faltering somewhat, are sheetfed
scanners. Although they made quite a splash in the mid-1990s, sheetfed
276 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
scanners seem to have succumbed to the affordability of flatbeds as well.
They’re still a great idea for document management and modem-based faxing
(I use one every day), if not great for high-end graphics use. Sheetfed
scanners are usually small devices designed to sit behind your keyboard or in
front of your monitor, and they resemble the tractor part of a typical fax
machine. A sheet of paper can be fed In the front, then little motors pull it
past the scanning sensors, finally spitting it out the other end. Most sheetfed
scanners are grayscale scanners, although a few of them have climbed into
the world of low-end color scans. They’re also often serial-port scanners,
requiring a connection through the modem or printer port on your Mac.
4- Photo scanners. Although not yet terribly common, photo scanners are
usually inexpensive, low-end devices that enable consumers to scan snapshot
photographs into their Macs, and then add them to Web pages or desktop-
publishing documents. These are typically all-in-one bundles that include easy
image-editing software, and so on.
•f Slide scanners. Almost in a class by themselves, slide scanners are used by
imaging and publishing professionals to scan 35-millimeter slides into digital
images that can be incorporated into the published page. These slides
generally result in reasonable quality at an affordable price, allowing product
and people photos to make it into high-end newsletters, newspapers, and
other midrange applications. Slide scanners may diminish In importance as
more publications and corporate media outlets begin to rely on digital images
being passed back and forth over the Internet. For now, though, it’s a simple
matter to pop a slide into an overnight envelope and send it for publication
the next day (see Figure 1 1-2). In addition, it results in an amazingly high-end
image for creating color separations, film and otherwise publishing the image
traditionally, as opposed to sending the image directly to a laser printer.
-f Drum scanners. These sophisticated, expensive devices actually use
scanning sensors different from most consumer-oriented scanners. The
original document or image is placed on a fast, revolving drum that enables
an Intense light source to pass millimeters away from the original photo or
document. The scanner can then bring more color detail and scanning
information in front of a high-quality scanning sensor. The result is a
professional-quality scan that’s ready for use in a glossy magazine or a
coffee table book.
chapter 1 1 ^ Scanners and Digital Cameras 277
Figure 11-2: A slide scanner takes a standard 35-millimeter slide
and outputs a digital image to the computer. Pictured is a Polaroid
SprintScan 35LE (www.polaroid.com).
Scanner quality
The quality of a scanner is generally measured against a couple different statistics,
including the resolution at which the scanner scans and the number of colors it’s
capable of seeing. Other technological issues — such as the number of passes the
scanner makes and the quality of the sensors — are also important. Of course,
the different types of scanners can also be compared for various advantages and
disadvantages. In most cases you’ll find that flatbed scanners offer the highest
level of quality (at the consumer level) while offering the most flexibility. Slide and
sheetfed scanners are designed for more specific tasks.
For starters, you should look closely at the scanning resolution offered by the
scanner. Scanners are rated by the number of dots per inch (dpi) they use to
convert documents into digital images. Inexpensive scanners scan at 300 dpi,
whereas more expensive scanners can go to 1,400 dpi or higher. In many cases,
more dots per inch results in higher-quality images, although it’s a bit more
complicated than that. Suffice it to say that a scanner that offers the ability to scan
at higher resolutions gives you more flexibility for various tasks. Outside of a
professional publishing setting, though, you’re unlikely to scan images at
resolutions higher than about 300 dpi (see the sidebar titled “Comparing
resolutions: Dots versus pixels”).
278 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
When shopping scanners, watch out for a number called interpolated resolution.
This may be the reason that you’re seeing a 1,200 or 1,600 dpi scanner available at a
price that just doesn’t seem to compute. Interpolated resolutions are those arrived
at by sophisticated software routines that artificially multiply the number of dots
per inch by assuming a linear relationship between two larger dots scanned at a
lower actual resolution. Although this process can sometimes result in a more
smoothly rendered image, it isn’t really a substitute for actual high resolution —
especially if you’re scanning very detailed images and art.
Most inexpensive scanners work with 24'bit color, meaning they can digitize as
many as 16.7 million colors, which also happens to be about as many colors as the
human eye can see. The 24 bits are divided three ways so that 8 bits are assigned to
each red, blue and green value for a particular color. Because computers can use 8
bits to store number values between 0 and 255, there are 256 unique possible
values for each of the three colors. Multiply those together — 256x256x256 — and
you come up with the total number of RGB combinations — about 16.7 million.
More sophisticated scanners work at 30 or 36 bits per pixel, meaning they can
distinguish billions of colors. Even though this is outside the range of human
perception, these colors can be useful for setting off colors around them or offering
very gradual transitions between two colors that humans can distinguish. Of
course, this level of nuance is probably unnecessary for the typical home or small-
business user who simply wants to scan images for a newsletter or Web site. But
the high-end scanners are there if you need them.
Of course, other factors differentiate inexpensive scanners from those that offer
higher quality. One of those is the dynamic range of the scanner. Dynamic range
represents the breadth of tonal values that the scanner can register. This results in
shading and low-contrast areas that scan at higher quality with more detail. By
contrast, a scanner with a low dynamic range won’t map colors as correctly,
resulting in more washed-out results. Generally, dynamic range goes hand-in-hand
with the number of colors (24-bit, 36-bit) the scanner works with. The additional
colors, even if they aren’t in the visible spectrum, add range to the image, giving it
more clarity.
Scanner software
Other factors in comparing scanners include the quality of the components used,
the type of light the scanner shines on your documents, and the overall packaging
of the device. One of the most obvious differentiators in scanners designed for Mac
users is the software package included; many scanners offer versions of Adobe
Photoshop, the leader in image manipulation programs. Because Photoshop costs
hundreds of dollars, a good deal can be had by buying it as part of a scanner
bundle. But watch the fine print. Photoshop Lite Edition (LE) is one way that
scanner companies include the software while lowering costs; however, the LE
version, while useful, offers far fewer features.
Chapter 1 1 > Scanners and Digital Cameras 279
Comparing resolutions: Dots versus pixels
Scanning resolutions, screen resolutions and printing resolutions “ all of which tend to be
measured in dots per inch — have very little in common with one another. For that reason,
ifs difficult to say to you, "Buy a 300 dpi scanner if you have a 300 dpi printer." Because
there's no international standards body that defines what, exactly, a dot is in this context,
dpi is only a relative term, not an absolute one. That makes it tough to choose a scanner.
For instance, a printer's dpi measure refers to a physical ink dot that's placed really close to
a bunch of other ink dots. These dots, eventually, make up an image. The more dots per
inch, the less jagged the printed text and images.
On a computer screen, dots per inch is a calculated number based on the size of your com-
puter screen and the resolution your monitor is set to display. When you think about it, dots
per inch is almost meaningless on a computer monitor. What's an inch on a computer mon-
itor? A user can set different resolutions on a monitor, as well as use monitor controls to
"squish" or otherwise distort the picture. Unless you adhere strictly to WYSIWYG resolution
rules (which is nearly impossible, but discussed in Chapter 12 nonetheless) or you hold a
ruler up to your computer monitor out of curiosity, inches are irrelevant
The resolution of a scanned, digital image represents only the size of a displayed image, not
the quality. When printed, a 300x300 image will often look better than a 200x200 image.
On a computer screen, the 300x300 image is simply bigger than the 200x200 image.
So the question is what sort of scanner do you need to scan images that will print well? The
answer: Less resolution than you think. You can't just compare resolutions, however. Instead,
scanned resolution is more strongly related to the lines per inch (Ipi) that your printer is
capable of printing. Once you determine your printer's Ipi (check the printer's documenta-
tion), the math is easy: Scan at 1 .5 times the ipi rating for your printer. In most cases, this will
translate to between 150 and 200 dpi scans for most inkjets and lasers. The only exception
is black-and-white line art (text, clip art and drawn images), which should be scanned at the
full resolution of the printer (300 dpi, 600 dpi, and so on), when possible.
If such low resolutions are recommended, why have high-end scanners at all? Those scan-
ners are meant for professional color-separation work, usually. When outputting directly to
a computer printer, the resolution of scanned images can be pretty low. But digital output
intended for a print house needs to be much, much higher. You may also want to scan at
higher resolutions for some of the latest, photo-realistic color and photo printers on the
market today (check their documentation and Chapter 15 for details).
You should also take any other bundled software into consideration, as well as
learning what image capturing software the scanner is compatible with. Specifically,
you’ll want to know if the scanner comes with any special optical character
recognition (OCR) software — and if it’s a fully enabled version — so you can scan
text into your computer. You’ll also want to know if any Photoshop-compatible plug-
ins are available, or if the standard TWAIN plug-ins are completely supported. If you
plan to use Photoshop often for your scans, it’s certainly convenient to use a plug-
in, which enables you to scan directly into Photoshop, instead of using an
280 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
intermediary program that just scans and saves the images (see Figure 1 1-3). If you
don’t plan to use Photoshop (or if you don’t have a copy and can’t afford it), make
sure your scanner offers a decent image-scanning program that also features
editing and touchup tools.
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Figure 11-3: Using a plug-in you can scan directly into Adobe Photoshop, which
enables you to manipulate and save the image directly.
So what’s TWAIN? It stands for (believe it or not) Technology Without An Important
Name, and, although the acronym is tongue-in-cheek, the standard itself is very
interesting. In essence, any TWAIN-compatible scanner can be accessed using a
TWAIN standard plug-in or software program. In Photoshop, for instance, a TWAIN-
compatible plug-in is bundled with the program. This gives you access to your
scanner, even if it doesn’t have its own Photoshop plug-in, assuming the scanner
itself is TWAIN compatible. Of course, TWAIN can’t completely replace the scanner
company’s software, because the manufacturer is able to write much more
sophisticated controls for image manipulation, batch scanning (scanning many
documents at once), and any other advanced features.
Chapter 1 1 4^ Scanners and Digital Cameras 281
Finally, don’t forget about optical character recognition (OCR) software. This class
of software can actually read scanned images, and then turn the text in the image
into computer text that can be, for instance, loaded in a word processor or desktop
publishing program. In essence, OCR replaces the need to retype documents.
Instead, the software takes a scanned image, analyzes it against sophisticated
algorithms, and outputs a text file that, if you’re lucky, bears a striking resemblance
to the original text (see Figure 1 1-4).
Figure 11-4: Most OCR programs do a pretty good job of character recognition, as
long as the font in the original document is fairly standard, large enough, and easy
to read.
Choosing a scanner
Resolution, color depth, quality, and software are all factors that should come
together in your decision to purchase a scanner, although the most important issue
to consider is purpose. How do you plan to use the scanner? Your answer will give
you a much better idea of the scanner that’s a good fit for your needs. Here are a
few sample scenarios:
282 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
4 77/ be scanning text documents only, mostly for archiving and faxing. In this
case, low cost and convenience are probably primary. I personally use a
scanner this way often, and I’ve found that a PaperPort or similar page
scanner is often the best way to go. These scanners are simple to deal with,
fire up immediately, and turn your computer into a full-featured plain-paper
fax machine. If you have a choice, though, get a SCSI version so you’re not
struggling to find an open serial port whenever you go to use it.
4 / want basic scanning and color for my home/small-office Mac. A 24-bit, 300-dpi
scanner will work fine for this sort of application, as will some of the high-end
page scanners. In fact, part of the consideration of choosing flatbed versus a
page scanner is whether or not you’ll be using the scanner as a copier
replacement as well. If that’s the case, a flatbed is easier to use for copying
stapled reports, pages in books, and magazine stories. At the same time,
advanced page scanners also feature enough color support and quality
features for Web design and small-business newsletters.
4 / need good color for my creative business setting. A 30-bit or 36-bit scanner
with real resolutions of 600 dpi or greater may prove necessary for such a
task. In reality, even these scanners are reasonably inexpensive, although you
may find that additional capabilities (such as large format scans for oversized
documents) and productivity add-ons (such as an automatic document
feeder) boost that cost significantly.
4 I need the top of the line. Consider some of the 36-bit scanners made by
MIcroTek, Agfa, and UMAX, among others. The optical resolutions can stretch
to 1,000x2,000, with the capability of scanning both transparent and regular
documents. Sizes tend to get larger, too, with support for full tabloid-size
scanning. They can often be faster, making them worthwhile for larger
workgroups that need to share the scanner.
4 I've got to scan some slides. A dedicated 35-millimeter slide scanner is your
best choice, with a transparency add-on as your second choice. Some higher-
end scanners can pull off scanning both, although you’re unlikely to get the
same quality you get from slide scanners using a dual-pronged solution.
Table ll-l points you to the Web sites of some popular scanner manufacturers that
include Mac-compatible versions and bundles.
Table 11-1
Scanner Company Web Sites
Company
Web Sites
Type of Scanner
Agfa
www.agfa.com
Flatbed
Apple Imaging
imaging.apple.com
Flatbed
Epson
www.epson.com
Flatbed
Chapter 1 1 -f Scanners and Digital Cameras 283
Company
Web Sites
Type of Scanner
Hewlett-Packard
www.hp.com
Flatbed; page
Kodak
WWW. kodak . com
Slide/film
LaCie Ltd.
www.lacie.com
Flatbed
Linocolor
www.linocolor.com
Flatbed
MicroTek
www.microtek.com
Flatbed; page
Polaroid
www.polaroid.com
Slide/film; photo
UMAX
www.umax.com
Flatbed
Visioneer
www.visioneer.com
Page
Installing a scanner
For the most part, scanners work like any other SCSI device, except (perhaps)
they’re more widely reported to be picky about the SCSI chain than are some other
devices. Not all scanners are trouble, but some certainly can be. If you’re having
trouble with a scanner, you’ll need to go Into SCSI-troubleshooting inode.
A few scanners offer serial port connections; usually these are the smaller page
scanners that offer only black-and-white scanning capabilities. (You probably won’t
find such scanners new, but they’re still available through many mail-order houses
and ads in the back of Mac magazines.) Because of the increased amount of digital
information that a color scanner has to provide, it’s unlikely you’ll find one that
connects to the relatively slow serial port. (1 wouldn’t be surprised if USB versions
of all sorts of scanners have started appearing on the marketplace, too, although 1
haven’t seen any for Macs at the time of writing.)
After you’ve decided what SCSI ID number is available for your scanner (consult the
Apple System Profiler if you’re not sure what SCSI ID numbers are already taken),
you’re ready to add the scanner:
1. Shut down your Mac and ground yourself electrically.
2. Set the scanner up on a sturdy, level surface next to your Mac.
3. Find the special shipping pin that holds the scanner mechanism in place when
the scanner is being transported. (Consult your scanner’s manual for
information on how to remove it.) Some scanners may ship without this pin,
but it’s important to know that; otherwise, you could ruin the scanner simply
by turning it on if the pin is still in place.
4. On the back of the scanner, select a SCSI ID number for your scanner (see
Figure 1 1-5).
284 Part II ‘f Performing the Upgrade
Figure 11-5: As with many SCSI devices, scanners generally have a
SCSI ID selector near their SCSI connectors.
5. Plug the scanner’s SCSI cable into the scanner and into your Mac’s SCSI port
or into the last SCSI device in your SCSI chain. Unless the scanner is internally
terminated (check your manual), you’ll need to insert the SCSI terminator
block into the other SCSI port on the scanner.
6. Plug the scanner’s power cord in and turn it on. You should see the scanner’s
mechanism come to life.
7. Turn on your Mac. Install any software that came with the scanner, and then
restart your Mac if the installed software requires it.
You’re done. If you like, you can consult the Apple System Profiler to make sure the
scanner appears as a SCSI device. Start up your scanner software (or Photoshop if
the scanning software is a plug-in) and test your scanner.
For serial-port scanners, the process is even simpler. Just power down your Mac,
plug the scanner into a free serial port (the printer or the modem port), plug the
scanner into the wall-power socket, and then power up the Mac. Run the software
installer that came with the scanner, and then restart the Mac if the installer
requires it. When your Mac starts up again, you’re ready to scan.
Note
With many page scanners, you simply insert a piece of paper and the scanner comes
to life, scanning the page and loading the scanning software. The only thing that has
to be "on" is the scanner software itself — usually a small application or a control
panel (see Figure 11-6). The power to the scanner is managed internally, enabling
it to spin down and consume very little energy while it waits for another document
to scan.
Chapter 1 1 ^ Scanners and Digital Cameras 285
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Figure 11-6: The Visioneer PaperPort
control panel determines whether or
not the PaperPort should be on the alert,
waiting patiently for a new document to
scan (www.visioneer.com).
Digital Cameras
In a way, digital cameras are sort of upright scanners. Instead of scanning a single,
small document or photo, however, digital cameras enable you to point and click at
the world around you, turning an image in the lens into a computer image. They’re
nothing short of amazing, in certain respects, and I can easily foresee a day when
most of our daily photography is done digitally.
In fact, not a lot about the camera has to change. For professional uses, digital
camera backs can be attached to traditional camera mechanisms, allowing your
trusty Nikon or Canon to take digital images instead of film ones. In other cases,
the cameras are designed to be digital from the ground up — yet, they often have
a tendency to mirror their film-based cousins in appearance and functionality (see
Figure 1 1-7).
Figure 11-7: The Apple QuickTake 200 camera looks almost exactly
like a typical point-and-shoot 35-mm camera. (Courtesy Apple
Computer, Inc.)
286 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Of course, the difference is the lack of film. Instead of stopping into the drug store
to buy a few rolls of daytime or nighttime film, a digital camera stores images
internally — usually on a small storage wafer, in hard-wired static I^M, or, in
some cases, on a removable floppy disk.
How digital cameras work
in a way, digital cameras are video cameras that only have the internal electronics
for taking still images instead of moving video images. Actually, many of the
cameras can act as live video cameras as well — you just need to lug a VCR along
with you. With video out ports (for RCA-style video adapters that plug directly into
modern video equipment), you can use the viewfinder to frame a moving image and
display it directly on a TV. Similarly, you can hook one of these cameras up to an AV
port on your Mac, if it’s so equipped.
However, these cameras are mostly for easy point-and-click shots. Via a regular
camera lens, these cameras use digitizing sensors to store the image instead of the
traditional exposure on chemically treated film. Usually, the sensors are an array
of CCDs, similar to those used in consumer scanners. The image is also fed through
to an LCD viewfinder (in most cases) that gives a fairly accurate rendering of the
framed image. When you’ve got the shot you want, you press the camera’s picture
button, and the image that’s on the viewfinder at that moment is saved to memory.
Like regular cameras, digital cameras use a lens, requiring you to adjust focus,
macro settings (for extreme close-ups), and, often, aperture settings. In fact, many
digital cameras don’t even include a flash or additional lighting of any sort, because
those cameras are capable of accurately rendering the amount of light in the room
with little trouble. On some, a setting change brings more or less light into the
camera, depending on the natural or other types of light that’s in the room or
outside.
After the shot is taken, the digital data is stored in the camera or on a removable
storage medium. With no standards to go by, these storage options range from
manufacturer to manufacturer. Sony, for instance, makes a series of cameras that
save digital images directly to a standard 3.5-inch floppy disk. Apple opts for a tiny
memory card that can be filled with images, removed, and replaced to extend the
usefulness of the camera between download sessions with your Mac. Other
cameras use slightly different methods. Some have only an internal storage option,
relying on static RAM or a similar technology to store the images.
Static RAM is a type of RAM that's designed to store data even when the device that
holds the RAM is powered down. (In regular RAM, information is lost when you shut
down your Mac.) This is usually accomplished by feeding the static RAM a small
trickle of power- from a small battery, for example.
Chapter 1 1 -f Scanners and Digital Cameras '2.Q1
Shopping for a digital camera
Digital cameras come in many shapes and sizes, although three useful categories
will jump out at you when you go shopping. On the low end are consumer-oriented
cameras, designed to give you decent picture quality, but more of a point-and-shoot
experience. These cameras range from $150 to $500 or so and, generally, rival the
basic, fixed-focus 35-mm cameras you’d find in an electronics store for $35 to $50.
Actually, I’m kidding — a bit. Although the picture quality will probably be similar to
cheaper traditional cameras, almost any digital camera offers other interesting
features, such as video output to TV devices and similar extras.
Higher-end digital cameras ($500 to $1,000) offer the hobbyist or professional more
choices and features. These cameras still don’t output high enough quality for many
tasks — magazine print work, profe.ssional product shots, and similar pursuits — but
they’re a good solution for real-estate agents, brokers, attorneys, investigators, book
authors, and anyone else who needs a convenient way to take good-quality archival
photos. These cameras tend to offer more storage space for images, higher
resolutions, zoom lenses, and more sophisticated focusing and light handling.
In the professional photography arena ($1,000 and up), digital cameras come in two
types — really high-end all-in-one cameras and digital camera backs for traditional
camera bodies. These expensive digital cameras tend to sport all sorts of goodies,
including amazingly high resolutions, good storage, and professional touches such
as very fast processing of images, higher-quality CCDs, and other elements that
combine for better pictures. Where lower-end digital cameras are great for
snapshots, these high-end cameras are expensive outfits designed for top-quality
editorial and advertising needs.
No matter what the price range, you should ask some basic questions when
comparing the quality and performance of digital cameras:
4 Resolution. Lower-end cameras tend to shoot pictures designed more for
computing applications than for printing, so their resolutions are smaller;
640x480 is a standard field of pixels for inexpensive cameras. Others offer
better resolution, usually up to 1,024x768, or, in the case of digital camera
backs, l,012x 1268 resolution images with over a million pixels.
♦ Color depth. On the low end, you’ll find cameras capable only of 8-bit color
(256 colors), with thousands of colors becoming more commonplace. Like
scanners, the higher-end cameras offer 24-bit, 30-bit, and even 36-bit color for
displa>1ng colors beyond the visible spectrum (although they still add to
image quality).
288 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
4 Compression. To get these large digital image files to fit into a finite amount
of storage memory, most digital cameras use a compression scheme. These
can certainly vary in quality, with some of the schemes introducing errors or
artifacts within the image. Depending on the camera, you’ll probably have a
choice of compression schemes. Compression is the norm on the Web and in
lower-end tasks, but a very sophisticated approach to compression is
necessary for photographic-cjuality images for professional applications.
On the World Wide Web, JPEG and GIF image file formats are the norm. Both are
compressed formats, enabling them to transmit more quickly over a network. They
also tend to be lower quality than either TIFF or EPS (Postscript) image files. So, if
you're working with images destined for print, you'll probably want a camera that
saves images in TIFF format. Low-end cameras often won't, opting instead for JPEG-
compressed files. (Some PICT image files, by the way, are actually JPEG compressed,
even if the/re not in the JPEG format.)
4 Storage. As mentioned earlier, these cameras rely on an internal storage
mechanism for holding onto the images until they can be downloaded onto
your Mac. One feature of the more expensive cameras is a unique or high-
capacity approach to storage. If you can easily get additional storage
modules, for instance, or if the storage inside the camera can hold many,
many images, the camera might be worth the extra investment.
4 Interface. Although most low-end digital cameras offer a serial cable
interface, this can be an incredibly slow way to transfer images. (Not only
slow, but many Mac-based transfer programs also tie up the computer while
downloading the images, forcing you to find other things to do while the
images are transferred. You may even find yourself — gulp — reading.) High-
end cameras offer a SCSI interface instead, enabling images to be transferred
much more quickly.
Other factors may influence your choice as well. Most cameras, like scanners, come
with an image-editing program (most likely an Adobe product). If the camera you
have your eye on also happens to offer a full version of Photoshop, it may be worth
the price.
Similarly, different cameras offer extra features that may interest you. Zoom lenses
are available in many midrange cameras, as are high-quality LCD screens, red-eye
reduction, auto-flash capabilities, and rechargeable batteries. If you’ll be using the
camera as a presentation tool, you’ll want to make sure it can be hooked directly to
a TV through an RCA-style video cable. In some cases, you’ll even find models that
enable you to upload your own images to the camera, which can then be used as a
hand-held, portable presentation device.
chapter 1 1 Scanners and Digital Cameras 289
Also, if it’s important to you, don’t forget to check for pass-through video
capabilities. Some low-cost cameras I’ve encountered (like the Apple QuickTake
200) do a better job of full-motion display than cameras costing hundreds more.
Hook up the camera to a VCR, and you’ve got an instant (albeit heavy) camcorder!
If you're into editing your images, don't forget to make sure your camera offers a
Photoshop-compatible plug-in for downloading the images from the camera directly
into a Photoshop-compatible image-editing program.
Using the camera with your Mac
Once you’ve shot your heart out with the digital camera, it’s time to hook it up to
your Mac and download the images to your computer. Most likely, you’ll need to
have installed the software (or Photoshop plug-in) that came with the camera. From
there, the task is usually a simple one:
1. Shut down your Mac, and install the serial cable that came with your camera
on the modem or printer port (whichever is free).
2. Attach the digital camera to the cable through the camera’s interface port.
3. Restart the Mac.
4. Start up your image-retrieval software (if it’s Apple’s software, it’s called
Camera Access). You may have to tell the software what port you’ve plugged
the camera into, although some of the retrieval programs can find the camera
without help.
5. Choose the option in the software through which you can preview your
images.
6. Select the images you want to download to your Mac. (You can usually hold
down the Shift key or the §€ key while clicking multiple images to select more
than one at a time.)
7. Invoke the download command in the image software. You may be asked
to choose what folder to save the images in. Do so and click OK. (See
Figure 11-8).
That’s usually all there is to it. With most of the image-download programs, you’ll
have an option to delete all the images currently stored on the camera. This will
clear them out so you can take more pictures, but be sure you’ve downloaded and
saved onto your Mac all the images you wanted to keep.
290 Part II > Perfonning the Upgrade
Figure 11-8: In Apple's Camera Access, you choose each image you want, and then
use the Save Selected to Disk option to download them from the camera.
If you’re interested in downloading the images from the camera directly into
Photoshop, you do that by invoking a Photoshop plug-in. In most cases, the plug-in
you’ll be using is actually an Export/Acquire plug-in, so that’s how you’ll install it:
1. Make sure Photoshop isn’t running, and then copy the plug-in to the
Export/Acquire folder that’s inside the Photoshop folder on your hard drive.
2. Start Photoshop.
3. In Photoshop, choose Open, Acquire from the menu, and then choose the
listing for your camera. This brings up the plug-in for your particular camera
(see Figure 1 1-9).
In most cases, this plug-in will work a lot like the image-download program for your
camera, although the plug-ins will sometimes have fewer capabilities — for
example, only downloading one image at a time.
Chapter 1 1 4 Scanners and Digital Cameras 2d 1
Figure 11-9: The Canon PowerShot has a Photoshop Acquire
plug-in that offers full-featured access to the camera.
Summary
^ Scanners and cameras are both great add-ons for Mac users at any level,
whether you’re just trying to dress up your small-business newsletter or you
need to prepare images for magazine layouts. Scanners and cameras are also
popular peripherals, resulting in widely varying feature sets, costs, and
performance.
> Scanners use bright light and special sensors to create an image of an existing
document and turn it into digital information that can be used on your
computer. You can then use image-manipulation programs to change the
scanned document or photo, or you can use an OCR program to recognize the
text in the scanned document, enabling you to then paste the text into a word
processing program for editing.
4“ A variety of scanners are available, and can be differentiated by the type of
documents they scan, how they’re inserted into the scanner, and what type of
interface (serial or SCSO the scanner uses. You’ll also encounter some other
factors, such as the number of colors the scanner recognizes, the scanner’s
top resolution (usually in dots per inch), cind the document sizes the scanner
can work with.
-4 Install a scanner the same as you would most other SCSI devices: After picking
an available SCSI ID number, plug it into the SCSI port on the back of your Mac
or into one of the other SCSI devices in your SCSI chain. You’ll need to remove
some shipping materials if the scanner is brand new, and then turn everything
on, run the software, and test the equipment.
292 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
4 Digital cameras are like upright scanners — they create digital images through
a camera lens. From inexpensive to professional quality, digital cameras offer
many different features and performance factors, including color depth,
resolution, image storage, and image compression. You’ll probably want to
check out any additional features on the camera, such as zoom lenses and
TV-video output.
4 To hook up your digital camera, you’ll probably attach it to a serial cable or, in
some cases, to a SCSI device. You’ll then run the camera’s access program or a
Photoshop plug-in.
Monitors and
Monitor Cards
I imagine that a lot of Mac users — especially those whoVe
been at it for a number of years — describe themselves as
visual people. The Mac OS interface plays to that sort of
individual, offering lines, fonts, icons, and other elements that,
for the most part, are carefully crafted to be aesthetically
pleasing. It follows, then, that a very high-quality computer
monitor can make your Mac experience even more
pleasurable.
It also helps to have a nice monitor if you’re going to be sitting
in front of that computer for hours on end. I know 1 tend to
harp on this, but 1 don’t believe you should ever take the
cheap way out when it comes to buying a monitor for your
system. Unless your eyes aren’t terribly important to you, or
you’ll only be using the computer rarely, it’s of utmost
importance to get a monitor that offers good color, flicker-free
display, and crisp, clean text. I’m no doctor, but 1 can’t imagine
looking at a washed-out or blurry monitor could possibly do
your eyes any good.
Fortunately, a lot of monitors designed to be Mac-compatible
are of very high quality. These days, almost any computer
monitor made can be fitted to work with a Mac, even if it
adheres to the Intel-compatible monitor standards. So there’s
plenty of competition on the market to keep prices down.
In case you don’t think you need a new monitor, you may want
to look into improving your Mac’s internal video hardware,
whether that entails a simple upgrade to the video RAM or a
wholesale installation of a new video card. New video can add
more colors, better resolution, and even acceleration to your
computing experience.
> ♦ 4 >
In This Chapter
How monitors and
monitor cords work
Choosing and
installing a monitor
Chart: Your Mac
monitor's built-in
capabilities
Choosing a monitor
card
Installing the card
^ ^ ^ ^
294 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Finally, even if you have the monitor and video capability you need, you should still
check out this chapter; you might learn something about screen resolution, built-in
video, and even how to accelerate certain video tasks on certain Mac OS
computers. Video hardware settings in the Mac OS monitor control panels can be
confusing to some users, so Til try to explain how it all works in this chapter, too.
Remember, nearly every Mac has the ability to take advantage of the screen real
estate offered by two or more monitors (as many, in fact, as you have video cards
for), ril discuss how to do this in more depth later in the chapter. Just remember, it's
a great reason to shop for a new monitor and video card.
How Mac Monitors Work
It takes three different elements working together to create an image based on data
from the Mac processor — the video interface circuitry, the software drivers in the
Mac OS that control that circuitry, and a video display monitor. The video circuitry
can be built into the Mac or supplied on an expansion card. The software is usually
included with the Mac OS, although some video cards include extensions that must
be installed as well. The display must be compatible with the Mac’s RGB (DB15)
output cabling, but the cabling can be easily adapted for use with a VGA (Intel-
compatible standard, HD 15) monitor.
When you’re looking at video, then, both the circuitry and the monitor itself are
important components that must work together to make images appear that human
operators can interact with. This requires not only compatibility, but a special
synchronization between the two elements to make sure everything works
flawlessly.
Note
The Mac has a group of programming routines built into it, called QuickDraw, that
controls the machine's graphical capabilities. Every program written for the Macintosh
is required to deal with drawing to the screen on its own via QuickDraw, which helps
by creating routines that make it easy to draw standard Mac OS elements such as
text, shapes, graphics, and colors. QuickDraw is also part of the underlying printing
architecture of the Mac OS, making it possible for Mac programs to communicate
with printers.
Bitmapped images
Inside every Macintosh model is circuitry designed to paint the screen dot by dot;
this circuitry determines what each dot should look like at a given moment of time,
including whether it’s on or off (on a black-and-white screen) or what intensity of
red, green, and blue the dot will represent to form a particular color. (Actually, in a
color monitor, each dot can only be one color, so the dot for each of the RGB colors
Chapter 12 ^ Monitors and Monitor Cards 295
are positioned closely together to create a single pixel — short for picture element —
of the screen image. To the human eye, this results in a blending of the intensity of
each dot to create a unique color.)
The process of creating and storing such an image is called bitmapping, wherein
each bit, or pixel, of an image has its associated value stored in computer memory.
This creates a map of the overall image that is then communicated to the monitor,
which responds by turning on the dots at the light intensities necessary for the
image. It does this by using an electron beam to draw each line of the screen,
energizing a phosphorescent coating that glows as required.
It sounds complicated, but a typical Macintosh actually performs this task between
60 and 85 times per second, depending on the capabilities of the display and
computer. This results in images that appear to move seamlessly, when, for
instance, you drag a window or launch an application.
You may have heard of interlacing monitors, which were popular for a time in the
Intel-compatible world (and can be used with some Mac models). These monitors
work the same way a standard television does, by drawing every other line of the
screen image, and then filling in the alternating lines on the second pass. This
makes the monitor work less hard, enabling it to update each set of lines on
alternating passes. It can result in an image that appears to flicker slightly,
however, even though the image is being updated many times per second.
Note
You may hear people use the letters CRT and the word monitor interchangeably. CRT
stands for cathode ray tube, the most common type of technology used for desktop
monitors. Other technologies exist, though, and some of them -like LCD technolo-
gies used for years in Power Books -are beginning to encroach on traditional CRT
turf. Apple has even begun to offer a model, the Apple Studio Display, that uses LCD
technology -resulting in a very lightweight, thin display that, unfortunately, is also
quite a bit more expensive than typical CRTs.
Refresh rate
The number of times a Mac’s screen is redrawn per second is called the refresh rate,
often measured in hertz (Hz). For the most part, individual monitors or displays are
capable of a particular refresh rate, and they must be set to show images at that
rate for the display to be useful. For instance, the original Mac classic form factor
includes a black-and-white display with a fixed refresh rate of 60.15Hz, meaning the
screen is updated approximately 60 times per second. The Mac OS won’t allow you
to change this setting, because the monitor will only synchronize with the Mac’s
video interface at that speed.
Most newer monitors are called multisync monitors because they’re capable of
synchronizing to different refresh rates and screen resolutions. In this case, you’ll
need to know the limits of your monitor yourself, as the Mac video software may
allow you to exceed the maximum refresh rate at which your monitor can display
an image. This can be potentially damaging to the monitor, so it isn’t
296 Part II Performing the Upgrade
recommended — under any circumstances — that you run your video circuitry at a
refresh rate higher than the monitor’s specified limit. (Usually the Monitors or
Monitors & Sound control panels will keep you from “overdriving” a monitor.)
Actually, two refresh numbers appear in the rating for most monitors, but only the
vertical refresh rate is interesting; the horizontal refresh rate simply tells you, in
kilohertz (KHz), how long it takes for each line to be drawn as the screen updates.
Notice that KHz translates into thousandths of seconds, so the number, whether it’s
30 or 70, represents a very fast rate, and therefore is rarely a selling point for an
individual monitor.
Resolution
Another important factor in monitor and video-card purchases is the resolution
supported. Resolution is measured by the number of pixels high and pixels wide
at which the screen image is displayed. These pixels create the grid of bits that are
turned on and off by the computer to create the bitmapped display.
On earlier monitors, the resolution is fixed by the monitor. The classic series of
black-and-white Macs, for instance, offer a fixed resolution of 512 pixels by 384
pixels. Multisync monitors, however, offer a range of different resolutions that
can be dialed up by the Mac OS and displayed on the screen. This enables you to
change the number of pixels that appear on screen by changing a setting in the
Monitors control panel (see Figure 12-1).
Figure 12-1: The Monitors control panel (or Monitors
& Sound control panel in Mac OS 8 and above) enables
you to change the resolution on multisync monitors.
chapter 12 4- Monitors and Monitor Cards 297
Why switch resolutions? A few reasons exist, the most obvious one being that
changing the resolution changes the size of the images on your screen. The lower
the screen resolution, the bigger each pixel. Remember, a pixel isn't a fixed
measurement. It’s just a shorthand way to say “picture element.” So, the fewer
picture elements you have on a given screen, the larger the image.
That’s why many game programs will switch the monitor to a resolution of 640x480
before beginning the game. Because games tend to be very demanding on your
video hardware (what with many video effects, 3D images, and complex textures
that need to change quickly), the game will default to a lower resolution setting so
it has to chcinge fewer pixels at one time, making its job easier.
But the size issue can involve more than simply choosing between bigger or smaller
images for gaming, comfort, or whatever other reasons. Screen resolution also has
a loose correlation to the concept of What-You-See-ls-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG,
pronounced “wizzy-wig”). Given a particular monitor size, you can set the
resolution so that the size of images and text on the screen corresponds almost
exactly to the size the images and text will be once printed. For page layout tasks,
this capability is crucial — and it’s a standard that Macs have always aspired to.
At least, until recently. As the Mac and Intel-compatible worlds continue to
converge, Macs have begun to work well with monitors that are standard in the
Intel world, along with the set of resolution standards for those monitors. These are
often close to the Mac standard resolutions, but not as precise when it comes to
WYSIWYG. In fact, the sheer number of different monitors you can now hook up to
your Mac makes WYSIWYG an impossible standard for monitors, because one so-
called 17-inch monitor might actually show 15.3 inches of viewing area, whereas
another might show 14.7 inches or 15.6 inches.
There's another reason monitor resolutions have gotten a bit screwy recently: Fewer
people care. At one point, Macs and their monitors were fixed at the magical
WYSIWYG resolution because print publishing was such a primary function for Macs.
The prevailing attitude in the Intel world, however (at least for Microsoft Windows
users), has been that increased resolution gives you more screen real estate to work
with, therefore it should be jacked up so you can see more of a word processing doc-
ument or Web page than you would at a lower resolution. Neither approach is nec-
essarily better than the other. Whichever you adopt depends on what your prefer-
ences are. You should consider how important true WYSIWYG is to you before
choosing the resolution at which your Mac will run. It may not prove important to you
at all.
The magic WYSIWYG number is 72 dots per inch. That’s the point at which letters
on the screen look just like letters on the printed page. You publishing types might
notice something else about this magic number: It means each pixel corresponds
to a point (a unit of measure used to gauge the size of typefaces), as there are also
roughly 72 points per inch. At this resolution, increasing a font’s point size by a
single point (from an 11-point to a 12-point font, for instance) changes it by one
pixel on the screen.
298 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
To get to this WYSIWYG nirvana, however, you either have to crunch some
numbers or buy your monitors directly from a single company that still cares about
such things. Not even Apple seems overly worried about it anymore, so you might
want to just skip the math and go straight to Table 12-1, which shows you how to
approximate the correct dpi.
If you do want to get an exact match, you determine the exact measurement for the
height and length of the viewable area of your monitor in inches. You then multiple
each by 72 dpi. That gives you the dimensions of pixels you should use for your
screen size.
For instance, a 15-inch monitor with a diagonal viewable area of 13.9 inches would
have a width of about 11.1 inches and a height of about 8.3 inches. Multiply 11.1 by
72 dpi, and you get 799 pixels. Multiple 8.3 by 72 dpi, and you get 598 pixels. So an
ideal W-TSIX^G resolution for this monitor would be 799x598. Look that up in your
Monitors control panel, and you’ll likely find a choice that’s pretty close: 800x600
(see Figure 12-2).
You kooky, nutball mathematicians are probably ahead of me on this one: You can
use the Pythagorean theorem to find monitor dimensions if you need to. Remember
that, in a right triangle, A^+B^ = C, where A and B are the height and width and C is
the diagonal. (On the other hand, those of you who think I'm just showing off my firm
grasp of geometry are probably right. It's the last level of math I grasped at all, firmly
or otherwise.)
J
A
.Color Depth
O Cray's
Colors
. Gamma
Unoorrtcie^ G<mm«
_ Resolution..
Show: [ Recommended , 1 1
Figure 12-2: 800x600 is a standard resolution, good
for a monitor that has a diagonal viewing area of
approximately 14 inches.
Chapter 12 ♦ Monitors and Monitor Cards 299
Monitor manufacturers have a history of making monitor comparisons tough,
because they’ve often measured the glass screen of their monitors instead of the
viewable area, and then advertised the screen according to that higher resolution.
Table 12-1 accounts for that, showing you the optimum viewable area for a
particular resolution, along with the “marketing department” resolution it usually
corresponds to.
Table 12-1
Ideal Monitor Resolutions and Viewable Areas
Resolution
Best for Viewable Areas of...
Marketed Resolution...
512x386
8.9 inches
9 inch
640x400
10.5 inches
12 inch
640x480
1 1.1 inches
14 inch
800x600
13.9 inches
15 inch
832x624
14.4 inches
16 to 17 inch
1024x768
17.8 inches
19 inch
1152x870
20.0 inches
21 inch
1280x1024
22.8 inches
24 inch
As viewable areas can vary dramatically, you’ll find some exceptions to these rules
For instance, Apple has traditionally named their monitors in a way that’s more
accurate about their viewable areas. Apple marketed two popular monitors in the
early 1990s as 16-inch and 20-inch monitors, even though they conformed to sizes
that other manufacturers typically called 17-inch and 21-inch, respectively. These
days you’ll find monitors made by Apple that are called 20-inch monitors but have
viewable areas of 19 inches. This makes them difficult to pin to a 72 dpi WYSIWYG
resolution.
Indeed, with very large monitors the dpi is a little greater than 72 if you use
1 152x870 or higher as your resolution, making the images on the screen slightly
smaller than they’ll print. The higher resolutions do, however, enable the monitor
to display more information in the same amount of space.
Dot pitch
Two other things to consider when comparing monitors are the technology used
to create the image and the dot pitch on color monitors. Let’s take the second
issue first.
300 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Dot pitch is a measurement in millimeters of the distance between the red, green,
and blue dots that make up a single pixel on a color monitor. In the case of a black-
and-white monitor, there’s exactly one dot per pixel, since it just needs to be on or
off (or, in the case of a grayscale monitor, on or off at varying intensities). In the
case of color, though, each pixel needs a different dot that represents a color of the
RGB tandem. Taken together, these three basic colors (at various intensities) can
create up to millions of unique colors.
However, each dot is a slight distance away from the other dots so that each of the
three colors can be illuminated separately. This results in a dot pitch that can be
measured and used to compare monitors.
You’ll find a dot pitch of .28 mm on most modern, multisync monitors. That’s
certainly good enough. Quality doesn’t really begin to disintegrate until you get
over .40 mm, and such monitors are hard to find these days. Slightly older, very
large monitors (like 21 inches and up) will often sport higher dot pitch numbers like
.31 mm or .35 mm. These are fine, too, for a large monitor.
If you come across a dot pitch of .26 mm or lower, you’re probably looking at a
monitor based on Sony’s Trinitron technology. Sony uses a different approach to
the aperture grille (thin metal strips) that enables the pixels to shine through to the
screen, resulting in a sharper image that almost always looks better than traditional
CRT monitors (which use a fine mesh screen called a shadow-mask instead of an
aperture grille) — at least, in my opinion.
Another important note: Your monitor doesn’t even have to have a dot pitch. LCD-
based screens are becoming more and more common for desktop systems. Once
only found in laptop/portable computers, LCDs and similar technologies are being
offered in stand-alone monitors that can be connected to nearly any Mac. Currently
the prices on these monitors make them difficult to recommend, but those prices
could change fast. If you see a good deal on an LCD screen, you might consider
buying it. LCDs are generally easier to look at for long periods of time; they don’t
use an electron gun and don’t have a refresh rate, so there’s no chance of flicker.
Although they’re still more difficult to view from a sharp angle than conventional
monitors, they consume less energy and less space on your desktop (see
Figure 12-3).
If you're in a situation where you're comparing CRTs and LCD screens, understand
that the viewable area of an LCD screen is almost always the same (or very close to)
Its marketed dimensions. So, a 12-inch LCD screen is likely to offer almost the same
viewable area as a 14-inch CRT monitor.
Chapter 1 2 4 - Monitors and Monitor Cards 301
Figure 12-3: The Apple Studio Monitor is an LCD display for desktop
computers. (Photo courtesy Apple Computer, Inc.)
302 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Buying tips: Monitors
Once youVe got the basics of monitor technology down, you might still be at a loss for
exactly which model to choose. You'll want to look at these factors: cost, size, and clarity.
The best advice I can offer is to give yourself a break. Go into a monitor purchase with a will-
ingness to shop a bit and some flexibility in your budget. I know from first-hand experience
that it can be awful to look at a bad monitor for hours at a time. And, once you've commit-
ted to the monitor, any problems or shortcomings will become part of your daily life.
So, judge the quality and clarity of the monitor in a computer store before buying. Also, read
the reviews in Macworld magazine and elsewhere. Put the monitors side by side for your
own comparison if you feel it's necessary. (Tell the salesperson I told you it was okay for you
to demand that they move monitors around on the shelf. This is an expensive purchase that
shouldn't be treated lightly.)
The picture should look square — not curved or warped (check the monitor controls on the
front to make sure the monitor settings aren't causing the problem before drawing conclu-
sions). Straight lines on the screen should look straight Colors should be vibrant, not
washed out Changing the brightness control shouldn't warp the image terribly or blur text
on the screen. Play with the Monitors control panel to see if the monitor syncs well to other
resolutions or if switching is difficult Buy the largest monitor you can afford.
Remember, you can shop in the Intel-compatible parts of the computer stores, too; any
VGA-compatible multisync monitor will work with your Mac and an RGB-to-VGA adapter.
Installing a monitor
Once you’ve chosen the monitor you want to use with your Mac, installing it should
be a fairly simple matter. You just need to answer a few quick questions before
you’re ready to connect the cables:
4 Is this a multisync monitor? Older Apple-branded monitors and a few others
that are capable of connecting to Mac OS computers are not multisync,
meaning they’re only designed to accept one resolution and one refresh rate.
(Such monitors include the Apple RGB series, Apple Color, Apple Color Plus,
and Apple AudioVision 14.) If you have one of these monitors, youTI probably
have to plug it directly into an Apple monitor port, which will enable it to sync
properly with the Monitor control panel.
4 Is the monitor an Apple or Mac-only monitor? If your monitor is nearly any
Apple brand, or if it’s a Mac-only monitor with cabling exclusively for Mac,
then it uses an Apple RGB port adapter (see Figure 12-4). Otherwise, the
monitor is probably a VGA-compatible monitor. (VGA is the Intel-compatible
video standard.) In this case, you’ll likely need a special adapter to plug the
VGA monitor into the Apple RGB video port.
chapter 12 -f Monitors and Monitor Cards 303
Figure 12-4: Apple monitors hook directly to the Apple RGB video
port on most Macs.
> Does your Mac have a nonstandard video port? Some Macs — especially late-
model Quadra AVs and early Power Macs — offered special video ports for^
AppleVIsion AV displays. (The connection enables both video and audio
information to travel directly to the monitor.) Unfortunately, without an
adapter these ports aren’t compatible with any displays other than the
AppleVision models. The adapter is included with these computer models,
or you can buy such an adapter separately (see Figure 12-5).
^ Does this non-Apple monitor offer any sync limitations? Depending on the age
and capabilities of a VGA-compatible monitor, you may need a particular
adapter that limits the resolution, color depth, or refresh rate to certain
levels. Knowing the specifics will help you determine which adapter is
necessary.
If you’re planning to connect an Apple monitor and an Apple-branded Mac, you
should have no trouble; just connect the monitor’s video connector to the RGB port
on the back of your Mac, as shown back in Figure 12-5. Tighten the monitor
connector by turning the thumbscrews until they offer some resistance. (They
don’t need to be terribly tight, just secure.)
If you’re attaching a standard VGA-compatible monitor to your Mac, most likely
you’ll need an adapter. Although many models exist (including some that may be
made by your monitor’s manufacturer for your particular monitor), the best
adapters to buy are probably the universal models offered by Sony and a number of
other manufacturers (see Figure 12-6). Using DIP switches, you can set up the
304 Part II Performing the Upgrade
monitor cable so that the adapter interprets the Mac’s video signal in any
resolution, color depth, and refresh rate your monitor supports. Adapters are also
useful for multisync monitors, enabling you to hook up the monitor, and then
choose from the many different resolutions the monitor supports.
Figure 12-5: Certain Mac models require a special adapter cable
for attaching regular Mac RGB monitors.
Figure 12-6: A universal RGB-to-VGA adapter for attaching VGA-
standard monitors to Mac OS computers
chapter 12 ^ Monitors and Monitor Cards 305
If you happen to have a very new Mac or a Mac OS clone computer, or if you have
an add-on video expansion card installed, check to make sure you don’t already
have a VGA port available. Modern Mac cards and video circuitry expansion cards
often include both a RGB port and a VGA port. Unfortunately, you can usually only
use one or the other of the ports if they’re attached to the same expansion card.
video Circuitry
The other part of the video equation is your Mac’s video circuitry. It’s important to
know what sort of monitors your computer can support before you go shopping for
one. Or, if you’re just interested in using the monitor you already have, it’s
important to know the full capabilities of your Mac and whether you should add
more video features via an upgrade card. For that, there’s nothing like a chart.
Table 12-2 delves deep into the mysteries of built-in video, showing you the
resolution and capabilities of built-in video for all of Apple’s major Mac series, as
well as some of the clones. Shown are the top resolutions, highest possible colors,
and how the video can be upgraded. Note that the table tries to differentiate
between upgrades that enable you to add VRAM to your existing setup and those
that require you to replace the VRAM with either a new, high-capacity memory
module or a replacement video expansion card.
Table 12-2
Mac Built-in Resolutions and Video Upgrades
Mac
Model
Built-in?
Top
Resolution
Top Color
Depth
VRAM
Upgrade?
Other
Upgrades?
Mac classic
models,
Perform a
200
Yes
512x384
Black and
white
No
None (PDS
in SE/30)
Mac Color
Classic,
Performa
250
256K
512x384
8-bit color
100 ns 256k
PDS slot
Mac Color
Classic II,
Performa
275
256K
512x384
8-bit
80 ns 256k
PDS slot
Mac II,
llx, cx,
fx
None
N/A
N/A
N/A
Requires NuBus
video card
(continued)
306 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Table 12-2 (continued)
Mac
Model
Built-in?
Top
Resolution
Top Color
Depth
VRAM
Upgrade?
Other
Upgrades?
Mac
llci, llsi
IMB^
640x870
8-bit
No
NuBus
Mac
livi, vx
512K
640x480
8-bit
100 ns512K
NuBus
LQ LC II,
Perform a
4xx
256K
640x480
8-bit
100 ns512K’
PDS
LC III, III
+, P450,
46x
512K
832x624
16-bit
100 ns 256K
PDS
LC475, P47x
512K
1152x870
16-bit
2 80 ns512K‘
PDS
LC520,
550, P520,
550, 560
512K
640x480
8-bit
80 ns 256K
PDS
LC575,
P57x
512K
640x480
8-bit
2 80 ns512K'
PDS
LC580,
P58x
1MB
640x480
16-bit
No
PDS
LC630,
P63x,
P640,
Quadra
630
1MB
832x624
16-bit
No
PDS
MacTV
512K
640x480
8-bit
No
None
Quadra
605
512K
1152x870
16-bit
2 100
ns512K’
PDS
Centris
610,
Q610
512K
1152x870
16-bit
2 100
ns 256K
PDS
P600,870
1152X
C650,
Q6505
16-bit
2 80 ns
256K
12K
NuBus
chapter 12 4- Monitors and Monitor Cards 307
Mac
Model
Built-in?
Top
Resolution
Top Color
Depth
VRAM
Upgrade?
Other
Upgrades?
C660AV,
Q660AV
1MB
1152x870
24-bit
No
NuBus
Q700
512K
1152x870
8-bit
6 100
ns 256K
NuBus
Q800
512K
1152x870
16-bit
2 80
ns 256K
NuBus
Q840AV
1MB
1152x870
24-bit
4 80
ns256K
NuBus
Q900/950
1MB
1152x870
16-bit
4 80
ns 256K
NuBus
Power
Macintosh
4400/160
1MB
1152x870
16-bit
4MB DRAM’
PCI
PM 4400/
200
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB SCRAM’
PCI
P5200, 521 X,
522x, 53x0,
54X0CD, PM
5200, 5300,
5400/1120
1MB
832x624
16-bit
No
PDS
P5260, 5270,
5280, PM
5260
1MB
640x480
16-bit
No
PDS
P5400/160,
5400/180,
5430, 5440,
PM 5400/
180, 5400/
200
1MB
1024x768
16-bit
No
PDS
PM5500
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
No
PCI
P611X,
C pi\d Cl nn
832x624
16-bit
No
PDS
k rlVI O 1
PM 6100AV,
7100AV,
8100AV
2MB^
1152x870
24-bit
No
None
P62x0, 6310,
6320, PM
6200/750,
6300/12
1MB
832x624
16-bit
No
PDS
(continued)
308 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Table 12-2 (continued)
Mac
Model
Built-in?
Top
Resolution
Top Color
Depth
VRAM
Upgrade?
Other
Upgrades?
P6360,
PM 6300
1MB
1024x768
16-bit
No
PDS
P6400,
PM 6400
1MB
1024x768
16-bit
No
PCI
PM 6500
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
No
PCI
PM 7100
IMB’
1152x870
16-bit
4 80
ns 256K
NuBus
PM 7200,
7215
1MB
1152x870
24-bit
3 70 ns 1MB
PCI
PM 7220
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB SCRAM’
PCI
PM 7300,
7500,
7600
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB VRAM'
PCI
PM 81 XX
2MB^
1152x870
24-bit
4 80 ns512K
NuBus
PM 8200
1MB
1152x870
24-bit
3MB VRAM
PCI
PM 85xx,
8600
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB VRAM'
PCI
PM 9500^
None
N/A
N/A
N/A
PCI
PM 9600
4MB
1280x1024
24-bit
No
PCI
PM 9600/
3xx
SMB
1280x1024
24-bit
No
PCI
PM G3
2MB
1280x1024
32-bit
6MB SCRAM'
PCI
20th
Anniversary
2MB
800x600
16-bit
No
PCI
Power Computing Systems
Power
100/120
2MB
832x624
16-bit
No
NuBus
Power
Base
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB DRAM'
PCI
Power
Wave
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB'
PCI
Power
1MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB VRAM'
PCI
Curve
Chapter 12 4 - Monitors and Monitor Cards 300
Mac
Model
Built-in?
Top
Resolution
Top Color
Depth
VRAM
Upgrade?
Other
Upgrades?
Power
Center
1MB
1152x870
24-bit
4MB VRAM'
PCI
Power
Center Pro
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB DRAM'
PCI
Power
Tower Pro
4MB
1920x1080
24-bit
8MB’
PCI
Motorola Systems
StarMax
3000^
1MB
1024x768
16-bit
4MB’
PCI
StarMax
4000
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB'
PCI
StarMax
5000®
2MB
1280x1024
24-bit
4MB'
PCI
UMAX Systems
c500,
c600
1MB
1024x768
16-bit
No
PCI
c600x/
280
2MB^
1280x1024
24-bit
No
PCI
j700
series
2MB
1920x1080
24-bit
4MB’
PCI
]700/
233
4MB
1920x1080
24-bit
No
PCI
s900
series
4MB
1920x1080
24-bit
8MB’
PCI
S900/233,
S900/250,
S900DP/250
8MB
1920x1080
24-bit
No
PCI
1 Upgrade replaces existing VRAM.
2 The Mac llci, llsi, and Power Macintosh 6100 use the system's regular system RAM memory for built-in video.
3 Power Macintosh 7100 and 8100 include both 1MB of dedicated VRAM and support the use of system DRAM
for built-in video (dual-monitor capable).
4 Many Power Macintosh 9500 models were bundled with a 2MB video card expandable to 4MB of VRAM.
5 Some StarMax 3000/225MT and 3000/240MT models include 2MB or 4MB of VRAM standard.
6 StarMax 5000/300 features 4MB of VRAM standard.
7 c600x/280 features 1MB built-in VRAM and 2MB video card (dual-monitor capable).
310 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Color depth
Let me quickly explain some of the numbers you’re seeing in Table 12-2 — especially
the spy-code-like references for color depth. Color depth refers to the number of
colors that the Mac and display have to choose from for each pixel in an image.
This number is generally expressed in terms of the number of data bits available for
storing color values. Table 12-3 shows the typical color depths and the number of
colors each includes.
Table 12-3
Color Depths
Color Depth
Number of Colors
1-bit
Black and white
2-bit
4 colors
4-bit
16 colors
8-bit
256 colors
16-bit
Thousands of colors (32,768)
24-bit
Millions of colors
A 32-bit color depth also has “millions of colors,” except that 8 bits of data are
dedicated to the alpha channel, which enables a graphics system to define
transparency and determine how the colors of the pixels will overlap one another
(to show translucence). This extra 8-bits can also be used for other purposes, such
as chroma key (transparency, like the blue screens used for movie effects) support.
You may also think that 16-bit color should have 65,536 different values, not 32,768.
The lower number is a result of the use of signed math, which enables low-level
programming instructions to execute more quickly, but requires the 16th bit to hold
the positive or negative sign (meaning only 15-bits’ worth of colors can be used).
Although most modern Mac-compatible monitors can handle as many colors as you
can throw at them, others — especially those built into older Mac models — are very
limited (monochrome and black-and-white displays are especially hampered). Check
your monitor’s manual for more info, or look in your Monitors control panel — it will
usually show you the limit to the number of colors your combination monitor and
VRAM can display.
chapter 12 4 * Monitors and Monitor Cards 311
VRAM
Whether your Mac currently uses built-in video circuitry or video on an expansion
card, there’s RAM memory, often called video RAM or VRAM, on that card. Because
each pixel of your bitmapped screen image must be stored in VRAM, the amount of
VRAM your Mac has determines the combination of video resolution and the
number of colors you can display on your monitor.
Some video cards feature upgradeable VRAM slots; they’re almost always
manufacturer-specific, so check your documentation. One megabyte of VRAM can
display anywhere from a resolution of 640x480 and millions colors, up to a
resolution of 1024x768 and 256 of colors. Beyond that, you’ll need 2MB or more.
Video cards (and Mac built-in video) tend to come with the following amounts of
RAM: 256K, 512K, 1MB, 2MB, 4MB, and 6MB.
As you may have gathered from Table 12-2, the amount of VRAM you need depends
on the maximum resolution and color depth at which you’d like to run your display.
Fortunately, you can calculate the amount of VRAM needed for a particular
resolution. Here’s the formula:
Width X Height x Pixel depth/8 = RAM Needed
It’s a simple matter of multiplying the resolution by the pixel depth divided by
eight. So, consider the example of a standard 14” color display:
640 X 480 X 8bit/8 = 307,200 bytes
For the basic 256 colors at 640x480, you don’t need more than about 300K, which in
most cases would translate to 512K of VRAM. (VRAM amounts, like RAM numbers,
are generally upgraded in increments of 256K, 512K, or 1MB.)
Often you can upgrade a Mac with 512K of VRAM to 1MB of VRAM. Why would you
want to do this? To get 800x600 resolution at thousands of colors — perfect for
driving a 15-Inch monitor:
800 X 600 X 16bit/8 = 960,000 bytes
If you can, you might want to bump up to “true” color (24-bit color depth) and
enough resolution to drive a 19-inch monitor. Here’s the sort of setup that’s fitting
for a graphic designer or multimedia professional:
1028 X 764 X 24bit/8 = 2,359,296 bytes
That’s over 2MB, which means you’d need at least 4MB of VRAM to run it. You may
have that much if you have a reasonably new Mac (especially one that was
originally a high-end system), or you may need to buy a video expansion card.
312 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Adding VRAM
If you want more color and resolution, you should considering adding VRAM to
your existing video circuitry. This is usually cheaper than a new video card,
although it’s important to note that VRAM won’t speed up your Mac’s display at all
(like an accelerated video card will). It just adds more resolution and color choices.
Before you get started, you’ll need to answer a few questions:
4 What sort of VRAM does your Mac support? This refers to the actual type of
memory module. Macs can vary from model to model — check your manual.
4 How much additional VRAM can you install? Check Table 2-2 for this
information.
4 Where are the VRAM sockets? Consult your Mac’s manual for help on this
information.
Armed with these answers, you can install the new VRAM. Follow these steps:
1. Shut down your Mac, unplug it, and ground yourself from static discharge.
2. Locate the VRAM sockets on your Mac’s logic board or video card.
3. Remove the VRAM that’s currently in the VRAM socket, if necessary. (Some
Macs enable you to add VRAM without removing the existing memory —
check Table 12-2 and your Mac’s manual.)
4. Install the new VRAM. (In some Macs, you’ll simply add the VRAM to an open
socket, as shown in Figure 12-7. In others, you’ll add the VRAM just as you
would a RAM SIMM, as described in Chapter 6.)
Figure 12-7: Adding VRAM to your Mac's logic board
Chapter 1 2 > Monitors and Monitor Cards 313
5. Close everything up and start your Mac. To test the VRAM, open your
Monitors (or Monitors & Sound) control panel. You should have new color
depth and/or resolution options.
Choosing a card
As with most expansion cards, you’ll want to focus primarily on the expansion
capabilities of your Mac before you run out and purchase a new card. You’ve got
to get the right expansion technology, or you won’t be able to install it at all.
Fortunately, as shown in Table 12-2, nearly all Macs have an upgrade path of
some kind.
Aside from the interface the card uses, there are three reasons to purchase a video
expansion card:
Increased capabilities. If you know your monitor is capable of more colors or
better resolution than your Mac can give you, you’ll want to add a more
powerful card. The card should be capable of displaying higher screen
resolutions, higher refresh rates, and more colors per pixel than your Mac’s
current video. This usually means a card with more RAM (or a VRAM upgrade
to your existing video).
•f Increased speed. Video expansion cards can also offer an increase in speed
by offloading some of the QuickDraw drawing tasks to a specialized processor
on the card itself. In the case of basic video tasks, this acceleration is usually
called QuickDraw acceleration, or 2D acceleration. You may also find cards
that include 3D acceleration, which is discussed in more depth in Chapter 18.
-f More monitors. If you want to add more monitors to your setup you can
pretty much buy whatever video card you’d like — from a cheap one that just
gets the job done to an expensive card with all the bells and whistles. If you’re
willing to dedicate the desk space to additional monitors, you’ll never be
wasting the video features built into your Mac. Plus, a video card for an
additional monitor only needs to be as capable as the monitor you’ll dedicate
to it. You can run Mac monitors at different color depths, resolutions, and
sizes, so whatever card you buy should work with any other video circuitry
that’s already in the Mac.
Once you’ve decided what the purpose for the card will be, you’re ready to shop.
There are three major factors to concern yourself with:
-f Expansion card technology. It almost goes without saying — you’ll need to
get an expansion card that fits an available slot in your Mac. If you don’t have
a free slot, you may be in trouble. Your only choice, in that case, will be to add
more VRAM if your Mac can handle more.
^ VRAM. Buy a card with the most VRAM you can afford, up to a point. If you
definitely won’t be using the card for professional-level image-editing tasks,
there’s probably no reason to go over 4MB in VRAM, which gives you true
314 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
color (24-bit) in most resolutions. Higher-end cards feature 32-bit color in all
resolutions by boosting the VRAM to 6- or SMB.
4 Acceleration. One reason to choose an expansion card over a simple VRAM
upgrade is to take advantage of the acceleration built into many of these
cards. For daily duties, look for a card that accelerates 2D tasks. If you work
with 3D objects, panoramas, or games, you may find that 3D acceleration is a
nice touch — QuickDraw Rave acceleration should do the trick. (3D
acceleration is discussed in more detail in Chapter 18.)
Installing the Card
As you might imagine, installing a video card isn’t much different from installing any
other sort of expansion card. If it varies at all, it will only be because video cards
always feature an external video connector (and perhaps other ports) that enables
the external monitor and similar devices to connect to the card.
Depending on the card and monitor, you might also find that you need an adapter to
get them to talk to one another. Macadapter (www .macadapter . com/) manufactur-
ers a few different types, as does Griffin Technologies (www.nashville.net/
'-gri ff i n).
Card installation
Installing a video card is pretty much the same as any card installation:
1. Shut down your Mac, unplug it, and electrically ground yourself.
2. Open the Mac’s case and locate an empty expansion slot. (Visually inspect it
to ensure it’s the right type of slot for your card.)
3. Remove the screw and metal dust plate that covers the hole in back of the
case for the slot you’ll be using.
4. Position the card so that its interface is directly over the slot. If it’s a NuBus
card, make sure the card’s housing fits over the NuBus slot on the logic board.
If it’s a PDS or a PCI card, make sure the card’s connector fits snugly in the
slot (see Figure 12-8).
5. Press down lightly and uniformly on the top corners of the expansion card
until it’s firmly installed in the slot. Screw the card into the back of the case to
secure it.
6. Attach the monitor cable in the back to the card. You may need to use an
adapter for VGA-compatible monitors. Make sure you set the resolution and
refresh rate to levels the monitor can support.
7. Try restarting your Mac and see if the card manages to drive the monitor,
resulting in a picture. You may need to install a software driver or extension
that enables you to control any acceleration capabilities the card offers. If you
have trouble, make sure to check all connections between the card, the logic
board, the monitor, and the monitor cable.
chapter 12 ^ Monitors and Monitor Cards 315
Figure 12-8: The MicroConversions 2124NB il card being installed
in a Mac llci. The NuBus card offers 2D acceleration and increased
VRAM over a llci's standard video, resulting in better video performance
(www.microconversions.com).
Once the card is installed and working, youVe ready to open up the Monitors (or
Monitors & Sound) control panel and set the card up for optimal performance. In
the control panel you can change the resolution, color depth, and refresh rate
(assuming your monitor is a multisync model).
Setting up two (or more) monitors
If you now have two sets of video circuitry (two cards or one card and built-in
video), you can also use the Monitors control panel to set up both monitors for
use with the Mac. (Actually, if both monitors are correctly connected to their
respective video ports, they should work immediately after you’ve started up the
Mac — but there are still some things you’ll need to tweak.) If both screens are
active, their icons will appear in the control panel, with each screen numbered 1, 2,
and so on. You can click and drag the mouse pointer on either of the screens to
reposition it relative to the other one (see Figure 12-9). If you desire, you can
arrange the screens so that dragging the pointer off the left side of the rightmost
monitor’s screen causes it, as logic would dictate, to appear on the right side of the
leftmost monitor. Otherwise, things could get tricky.
316 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
To set the resolution of one of the monitors, double-click its screen in the control
panel. That gives you access to resolution, color depth, and refresh rate settings
(see Figure 12-9).
The Monitors & Sound control panel in Mac OS versions after System 7.6 looks slightly
different from the Monitors control panel shown in the picture, but the concepts and
tools are similar. (In Monitors and Sound, choose the Arrange button to gain access
to the two screens shown in Figure 12-9.)
Figure 12-9: If you've installed two monitors,
you can use the Monitors control panel to position
the screens relative to one another and change
their characteristics.
You can also, in the Monitors or Monitors and Sound control panel, drag the menu
bar from one of the screens to the other. Generally, the positioning of the menu bar
determines which screen is the main screen, where new applications will launch
and alert dialog boxes will most often appear.
Summary
4 Monitors and monitor cards work together to display a bitmapped screen
image that’s created by your computer using Apple’s built-in QuickDraw
technology. The screen refreshes many times a minute to give you the
impression that images on screen change instantly. The more quickly the
screen refreshes, the more flicker-free the display. Fast refresh also makes
higher demands on your video card and monitor, especially as the screen’s
resolution and color depth increase.
4 Today there isn’t much point in buying a monitor that doesn’t offer multisync
capabilities. But you’ll also want to look at some other numbers, including dot
pitch, refresh rate, and the top resolutions supported. Also, get the largest
monitor you can afford.
Chapter 12 -f Monitors and Monitor Cards 317
4- Part of buying a monitor includes understanding your Mac’s built-in video
capabilities. You can check the chart in this chapter, and then decide if you
need to upgrade the VRAM or add a video expansion card. Adding VRAM
gives you more color and resolution choices. Adding a video card can do that,
as well as enabling you to add a second monitor and even speed the display of
your Macs.
4- Once you’ve made your decisions, it’s time to install everything. VRAM can be
a new experience, but installing video cards is about the same as adding any
other expansion cards. When you go to attach the monitor, though, the issue
is all about compatibility — you’ll likely need a special adapter, which may
take some detailed setup.
Digital Video
I f desktop publishing and Web publishing were the killer
applications of the 1980s and 1990s for the Macintosh,
digital video editing may be the killer Mac application for the
beginning of the new century. Long dominated by high-end
workstations and dedicated equipment, it’s become very easy
for even the hobbyist Mac owner to get involved with video
editing. Solutions for creating QuickTime video that can be
broadcast over the Web or included in multimedia
presentations (kiosks, CD-ROMs, and so on) are incredibly
affordable. But even higher-end systems for television-quality
editing are in a price range that many small businesses and
freelancers can afford.
For the most part, the digital video process can be broken
down into three steps: First, you need to get the video into
your Mac somehow. This usually involves hooking a video
camera or VCR to a port on your Mac and running the tape.
Your Mac, using video-capture software, records the images
digitally. The quicker your computer, your hard drive, and the
video capture circuitry’s ability to digitize video, the better
the video quality will be.
Your second step is to edit the video. Using QuickTime, video-
editing software, and (sometimes) add-on input/output
equipment, you can turn your Mac into a digital editing studio,
adding fades, wipes, music, dialog, and anything else you can
come up with.
Third, you need to get the video out of your Mac and back
onto videotape, a TV screen, or some other analog medium.
(Of course, you might also want to save your video to a CD-
ROM drive or removable drive, but those are digital mediums
and therefore don’t require any special translation.) To put
your digital images on TV, you need to hook one up to your
computer — again, through special video ports on the back of
your Mac.
4 ^ 4 ♦ >
In This Chapter
QuickTime and
digital video
Chart: Does
your Mac have
built-in AV?
Adding video-in
capabilities
Displaying your
Mac's screen on a TV
Getting started with
video
4 4 ^ ♦ 4
320 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Some Macs have all these capabilities (maybe even including some related bundled
software) built right in. Others, though, will require upgrading. Some of those
upgrades, as you might have guessed, can include NuBus or PCI expansion cards.
Others consist of hooking up external boxes to your existing video card. Whatever
way you pursue it, though, you’ll want to understand some of the basics of digital
video so you’ll know exactly what you need to get to upgrade effectively.
If you're not interested in all this crazy digital video stuff, why not take the couch
potato approach? There's also a quick discussion of TV tuner upgrades for Macs at the
end of this chapter.
The Digital Video Basics
At its most basic, creating a digital video is like using your Mac as a video-recording
device, enabling you to spool a camcorder video or similar video signal to your
hard drive. The end result, in some cases, is very similar to videotape.
Delve a bit further, though, and you’ll see that digitizing video is really a much
different process. With tape, everything remains static and linear; if you want to get
to a particular part of the video, you need to fast forward until you find it. If you
want to add more video in the middle of a particular clip, you’ll need to run the
video out to another recording device, pause it at the right moment, cmd then start
recording the new video. When it’s done, you start up the original and finish the
recording sequence. If you want the video to look really good, you’d better have
some editing equipment and professional-level recording devices.
Digital video is different — it’s what word processing is to typewriting. With digital
video, the images have been transformed into an actual computer file that can be
manipulated just like any other computer document. If you wanted to add more text
in the middle of a word processing document, you’d just place the cursor in the
document and start typing (or use the Cut and Paste commands to insert a chunk
of text). The same possibilities apply for digital video. Using a movie editing
program, you can find a particular moment in a video, and then cut and paste new
digital footage into the movie (see Figure 13-1).
What you need
Nearly any owner of a modern Macintosh computer can play digital video clips
directly on his or her desktop. In most cases, it’s simply a matter of point-and-
click. The Mac OS, with its QuickTime underpinnings, is able to arrange the
video in a window and give you controls for playing the video on screen. The
differences between older and newer Macs will sometimes shine through in
these demonstrations, though. A number of factors can affect how well a digital
movie plays:
Chapter 13 Digital Video 321
Samplejtii jaS|
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Movie Window Help
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Delete Tracks..
Enable Tracks..
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iniiutes
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App launcher ■ Mac Upgrade M Docu ments m Desktop Stu ff — Web tools
Web Sites HI Transfer
Figure 13-1: Even the most basic digital movie editor enables you to quickly piece
two video clips together.
4 Processor speed. A lot of things have to happen at once to get a digital movie
to play back well, including synchronizing the audio to the video, playing each
frame as it decompresses, and changing the pixels required to play the video
in a larger window. The faster your processor, the smoother and larger your
video will be.
> Video cards. Some video add-on cards are designed specifically to improve
the quality of QuickTime and/or MPEG video formats. Other video cards
simply accelerate the display overall, resulting in slightly better videos.
> Hard drive. The faster your hard drive (or other media on which the digital
video is stored), the faster and more smoothly the video will play. A fast hard
drive is required to get the data in the video to the system RAM quickly
enough for the processor to display the video on screen.
^ RAM. Digital videos tend to be huge documents, requiring a lot of RAM to play
back. Often this can be compensated for by turning on Virtual Memory, but
that tends to affect the quality of playback.
322 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
When it comes to recording and creating digital video, you'll need more hardware.
Dedicated expansion cards and other add-on devices are often necessary for
recording digital video to your hard drive so you can edit it. You’ll then need still
more hardware to get the image back out of your computer and onto a CD-ROM or a
videotape, if that’s your desire.
Here, then, are the basic necessities for creating quality digital video:
4 Fast processor, good video, fast hard drive, lots of RAM. Everything you
need for a good video playback machine is doubly important for a good video
studio Mac. You’ll need fast and wide everything to create and edit video
smoothly and effectively.
4 Video inputs. Your Mac needs special circuitry to accept video inputs from a
VCR, camcorder, or similar device, and then translate that signal into a digital
computer file that can be used by the computer and its editing software.
4 Digitizing software. Although the basic software for digitizing and dealing
with video is a portion of the Mac OS called QuickTime, you’ll still need
special software to access the routines in QuickTime responsible for digitizing
the video. (You may also want to work in a format not supported by
QuickTime.) This software has to be capable of accepting the video signal,
compressing it (in most cases), and storing it in a movie file format on your
hard drive (see Figure 13-2).
4 Editing software. Again, basic tools are built into Apple’s QuickTime
MoviePlayer application. You can get more capabilities out of the Pro version
of QuickTime, but you may want yet more sophisticated software for higher-
end editing.
4 Output hardware. Finally, you’ll need some way to get the digital movie back
out of your Mac so that people can enjoy it (or learn from it or otherwise
appreciate it). To do this, you’ll most likely want output hardware that
enables you to send a computer signal back out to a TV or TV-like device, a
VCR, or a camcorder for recording.
QuickTime
QuickTime, the multimedia portion of the Mac OS (and a prized add-on for
Microsoft Windows), offers the infrastructure you need to begin digitizing and
editing movies. Apple calls QuickTime a software architecture that includes a file
format (the QuickTime Movie format), support for the translation and integration
of other file formats, and services that can be referenced by programmers so that
their applications have access to features offered within QuickTime. This means
programs based on the QuickTime architecture can easily include a ton of tools
that enable images, video, and audio to be synchronized, optimized, compressed,
and otherwise manipulated to create digital video and multimedia files.
Chapter 13 4^ Digital Video 323
Figure 13-2: The Apple Video Player, which comes with AV-capable Macs, offers
basic digitizing functions.
To applications programmers, the QuickTime format provides convenience:
Programmers don’t have to reinvent the wheel when they want to deal with digital
movies. For instance, many Windows-based multimedia producers have used the
Video for Windows (VfW) file format and infrastructure in the pass. If they wanted
to, they could switch over to QuickTime by simply using programs based on the
QuickTime architecture, even if they have a lot of files already in Video for
Windows. Programmers of QuickTime-based tools can easily integrate support for
the VfW file format into their programs, because QuickTime offers VfW translation
ability directly.
In fact, QuickTime is so universally accepted as a multimedia standard that it will
eventually become the basis of the MPEG-4 standard, a wide-reaching standard des-
tined to be the foundation for quite a bit of digital video in the near future.
To the rest of us nonprogrammers, however, QuickTime provides a multimedia
document format. In other words, you can use QuickTime to create QuickTime
audio and video documents (see Figure 13-3). These documents can then be read,
understood, and displayed (or played) by programs that are capable of translating
and working with the QuickTime format.
324 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Figure 13-3: Notice there's no picture? That's because QuickTime is an audio
document format too, and this file is an audio-only QuickTime file. It's also being
played in SimpleText, by the way.
In fact, many Mac OS applications and desktop accessories are capable of working
with QuickTime. For example, SimpleText, the Mac OS basic text editor, can play
QuickTime movies, as can the Scrapbook. Because QuickTime makes digital video
tools so easy to integrate into applications, you’ll probably be working with a tool
that’s tied pretty closely to QuickTime if you plan to work on a Mac to create or edit
digital video. In that case, you’ll want to know a bit about how QuickTime works
together with other file formats and how it deals with digital data.
QuickTime is included when you install the Mac OS, but that doesn't always mean
you have the latest version. Check http://quicktime.apple.cofn for upgrades,
preview (beta) versions, and other QuickTime-related goodies.
Digital movies
QuickTime movies are a very sophisticated approach to the old flipcard animation
system you may have once implemented in the corner of a textbook during a
grade school lecture. With QuickTime, a series of digital images are arranged in a
Chapter 13 -f Digital Video 325
particular order so that, when displayed very quickly, they give the impression of
fluid movement across the screen. This is the same basic concept that drives all
motion-picture technology, whether it be the individual frames of a film strip, the
cells of an animation, or the scan rate of a television set.
For QuickTime movies to be considered television quality, they must display
about 30 frames per second so that motion feels very fluid and skips or jumps are
imperceptible to the human eye. However, it's difficult for desktop computers to
manage a full-screen, 30-frames-per-second data rate, considering the bottlenecks —
RAM, hard drive speed, processors, and video subprocessors. All these factors have
to come together in order to create a smooth digital movie.
QuickTime gives you the opportunity to do two things: First, you can use
QuickTime-based tools to edit digital movies as you would other computer
documents. You can edit each individual frame, if you wish, or use application
tools to add different special effects over time. You can also add or delete
individual frames or groups of frames.
QuickTime also gives you the ability to optimize your digital movies for whatever
your ultimate output medium is. If you want to display the video on a television or
record it to tape, you can tweak your QuickTime movie so that it will play at the full
resolution for a television screen and at broadcast-quality speeds (assuming your
Mac is powerful enough and you've added a few extras).
If you’re creating video for the Internet, though, you'll jump through some different
hoops: In this case, you're probably less interested in video quality and more in the
speed at which the video can transfer. To optimize the video for speed, you can use
special QuickTime routines to compress the file size of the movie.
Movie file formats
I've already mentioned that most Mac AV tools will enable you to save digital audio
and video in the QuickTime format so that you can use those digital documents in
many different applications. Aside from the QuickTime movie format, the
QuickTime architecture will support a number of file formats, including the
following:
> AVI (Audio/Video Interleave). This file format is most popular on the
Windows platforms, where its use is encouraged by Microsoft. QuickTime 3.0
and above can read and write directly to this file format.
4- OpenDML. The OpenDML format extends the AVI standard to include such
features as the capacity to have really large files, the capability to focus on
the number of fields-per-second displayed, and the addition of timecodes.
QuickTime enables users to read and write to the OpenDML extensions to AVI.
326 Part II Periorming the Upgrade
^ OMF. The Open Media Framework format was created by Avid, a leading
developer of high-end, professional digital-video solutions. The format allows
Avid products and other high-end digital-editing software to exchange files.
QuickTime includes the capability to work with OMF documents, enabling a
typical Mac to exchange files with more powerful workstation-level
computers.
4 MPEG. The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) standard, one of the
premier standards for digital video, is designed for the consumer market.
MPEG provides low data rates (for transmission over the Internet or by CD-
ROM) while maintaining high picture quality.
> DVC. New digital-only cameras use the standard DVC format for transmitting
digital images between the camera and a computer. QuickTime can work
directly with the stream of data that these cameras use to communicate,
enabling QuickTime applications to work directly with video from these
cameras.
QuickTime also enables you to deal with a number of audio formats, including
Apple’s own AIFF, Microsoft’s WAV format, Sun Microsystem’s AU files, and Sound
Designer II documents, along with MPEG-2 audio files. In other words, you can take
different input file formats and devices and bring them together in a QuickTime-
enabled editor to create and edit a complete digital multimedia document. This
includes audio and video clips you transfer over the Internet or similar networks,
audio you record using your Mac, video you record using a camcorder and your
Mac, and video you get from any other standard source.
Compression and codecs
If you’ve worked with regular image files much on your Mac, you know that they
can often get rather large, requiring hundreds of kilobytes or even a few megabytes
to store depending on their complexity.
To keep digital movies to a manageable size, various codecs
(compressor/c/ecompressors) can be used. These codecs compress redundant data
in most cases, making the file smaller for transmission and storage. Some of these
compression schemes are lossy, however, meaning they introduce a level of
inaccuracy into the color or pixel reproduction of the video. In other words, the
smaller you want the file, the more likely it will result in a slightly lower image
quality (see Figures 13-4 and 13-5).
Chapter 13 -f Digital Video Hi^2n
Figure 13-4: Here's an uncompressed movie
(file size approximately 3.3MB).
Figure 13-5: Here's the same movie heavily
compressed (and much smaller at 2MB).
QuickTime offers you tons of codecs to choose from when you save your movie.
Realize, though, that saving a digital movie can be quite a chore. The video-in
software will give you a choice of codecs, quality schemes, colors, and the like. As
the movie is saved. It will be compressed, and this feat sometimes takes minutes or
hours to accomplish. To get the ideal compression for your particular QuickTime
document, Apple offers a number of different codecs. Table 13-1 shows you some of
the video-related codecs and their recommended usage.
328 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Table 13-1
QuickTime Video Codecs
Codec Name
Use
Compression
Video
Provides fast compression, good for hard disk
playback
10:1
Component Video
Produces high-quality, big files; good for TV-
destined clips
2:1
Animation
Works with clips that have few color changes
2:1
Graphics
Provides slow decompression; good for
256-color graphics
2.5:1
Photo JPEG
Good for high-quality images
5:1 to 50:1
Cinepak
Good for CD-ROM-based movie playback
25:1
None
Provides best capture rates, but huge files
1:1
DV
Used with digital video cameras
1:1
H.263
Used for video conferencing
Varies
Sorensen
Used for Web-based, streaming video
Varies
If you have the QuickTime Pro package (available from Apple) or QuickTime 2.5
or above, you’ll have some or all of these options available to you through the
MoviePlayer application when you go to save a digital movie (see Figure 13-6).
You may also see these options if you save a digitized movie using some other
program, including Apple’s Video Player and similar programs.
Compression Settings
Quollty
\ Options^ I I Cancel |
Figure 13-6; Choosing codecs
and other settings for saving
the movie file
Chapter 13 > Digital Video 329
Key frames and data rates
Once youVe gotten through your choice of codec, you’ll want to address a few
other issues that have to do with QuickTime movies. One such issue is the key
frame rate. Key frames are frames of a QuickTime movie that QuickTime uses as
reference points. At each key frame, QuickTime considers the entire frame, showing
it immediately in the movie-playing application. All subsequent frames are treated a
bit differently, however. To speed things up a bit, QuickTime only compares the
differences between subsequent frames and the current key frame until it reaches
the next key frame. This process makes the movie a bit smaller for quick transfer,
but it also can hurt the quality of the clip.
If you’ve created a clip for the Internet or another slow medium, setting the key
frames fairly far apart (15 to 20 frames) makes some sense. In those cases, a key
frame every two seconds or so is reasonable. If you’ll be playing back the video
from a much faster source, though, use a lower key frame rate.
Another issue is data rate. For some codecs, setting a specific data rate tells the
QuickTime movie what its limitations are going to be as the movie is saved. For
CD-ROM based movies, for instance, 200- or 250 kilobytes per second is
recommended.
video-in Hardware
Once you’ve got a basic grasp of how QuickTime works, you’re ready to get some
video into your Mac. To do this, you may need to buy some additional hardware,
depending on your Mac model. In some cases, Macs come with built-in capabilities
for accepting video feeds and turning them into digital images. In other cases, you’ll
have to opt for an expansion card.
To start, though, let’s look at the basic issues that need to be addressed regardless
of the video-in solution you’re using.
Interface types
The key with any video-in solution is getting it to talk to your video source, whether
that’s a VCR, camcorder, or something more exotic. Therefore, you’ll want to take a
close look at the interface options you have for connecting the camera or similar
device to your Mac. These tend to be as follows:
> RCA video plugs. These days the little yellow RCA video wires are vying
for dominance over cable-TV coax wiring for attaching a composite video
source (such as a standard VCR). If you’ve messed around behind your
home-entertainment system, you know what I’m talking about. RCA plugs are
male adapters with a small shield around their points. The video cable, almost
invariably, is yellow, whereas the white and red cables are used to connect the
left and right channels of audio, respectively.
330 Part II Periorming the Upgrade
4 S-video. An S-video (or super video) connection achieves higher-quality output
(especially to a VCR or TV) by splitting a video’s signal into two parts — one
for color, one for brightness. Television sets are designed to split the two
values, but standard composite video sends them using the same signal.
However, S-video connections require S-video-capable equipment. The S-video
connector resembles a standard Din-8 or ADB port connector. Don’t plug one
into the other — take care that you only plug the S-video connector into the
Mac’s S-video port.
> FireWire. Although technically a new serial technology, FireWire (originally
developed by Apple) is quickly becoming a popular interface for video
cameras and equipment. Also known as IEEE 1394, this connection is another
high-speed wonder that’s also isynchonous, meaning it guarantees a particular
data rate. This is perfect for video-in applications that require a reliable high-
speed input option. Digital video cameras are required for this connection,
because FireWire isn’t really designed to digitizing video; it’s designed to
tranfer DV format files from a DV camera to your Mac. A FireWire adapter is a
thin, flat, 6-pin serial connector, as shown in Figure 13-7.
Figure 13-7: A FireWire connector is unlike any serial cable the Mac world has ever
seen. (Photo courtesy Apple Computer, Inc.)
Your interface choices will be highly dependent on the sort of AV capabilities your
Mac has. If you’ve got AV built-in, you’re probably given a choice between RCA and
S-video connectors. Some cards also offer both, although earlier cards might be
limited to RCA-style connectors. A FireWire card is pretty much a stand-alone
creature these days, so if you have FireWire built in, you probably know it.
Otherwise, you’ll need a PCI adapter card.
Chapter 13 ^ Digital Video 331
There’s something else to consider, too. You need to make sure you have the right
adapters, hardware settings, and other elements in place for dealing with the
television standards to which your video equipment adheres. In the U.S. and most
of North America, that’s the National Television Standards Committee (NTSC, also
called RS-]70d) standard. In Europe and other places, the Phase Alternating Line
(PAL) standard reigns supreme, and the SECAM (SEquential Couleur Avec Memoire)
stauidard covers just about everywhere else. The differences include the number of
lines of resolution and how often the picture is updated. What’s important, though,
is that you’ll need the right adapter to accept a video source from a video
component using one of these standards, and you’ll need a video-out option that
supports the correct standard if you plan to send QuickTime movies back out to a
videotape or television.
Built-in AV
Before getting too far ahead, let’s make sure you know exactly what capabilities are
built into your Mac. If you’ve never really taken a hard look at the back of your
Mac’s case, you might be in for a shock. Table 13-2 shows the Apple Macintosh
models that include video-in hardware.
Table 13-2
Macintosh Computer with Built-in AV Capabilities
Computer
Built-in
AV Capability?
Includes
Expansion Card?
Special Video
Slot?
LC 580, Performa
580 series
Yes
Quadra 660AV
Yes
Quadra 840AV
Yes
Performa/Quadra
630 series
Yes
Performa (and
Power Macintosh)
5200, 5300, 5400,
5500 series
(Some models)
Yes
Performa (and
Power Macintosh)
6200, 6300 6400
series
(Some models)
Yes
Power Mac 6100AV,
7100AV, 8100AV
Yes
( continued)
332 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Table 13-2 (continued)
Computer
Built-in Includes
AV Capability? Expansion Card?
Special Video
Slot?
Power Mac 8500,
8600
Yes
Power Mac G3
Minitower
Yes
video-in expansion cards
If your Mac didn’t come with built-in AV features, you still have plenty of video-in
upgrading options. Although some older Macs — say, pre-68040 Macs — aren’t really
ideal for video editing, a surprising number of aging Macs still are. (It’s 3D rendering
that will kill you if you don’t have a high-end processor.) In fact, for years the
Quadra 840AV — with its upgrade slots, high-end SCSI (for its time), and secondary
digital signal processor — was a favorite digital editing platform even as newer
Power Macs were rolling off the assembly lines.
As they say, it’s all in the card(s). Many 68040 and early Power Macintosh models
are capable of accepting NuBus cards with good video digitizing throughput that,
these days, are even pretty affordable. If you’ve got PCI slots in your Mac, you’re in
great shape; the more capable PCI bus makes add-on video-in cards an easy
alternative for the budding video editor. Plus, such upgrades often prove affordable.
If you have a Performa or all-in-one Power Macintosh computer (along with a few
regular Quadra and Power Mac models), you may not have video-in built into your
Mac, but you do have a different option. For a number of years, Apple built a
special video slot into its consumer and education-market Macs. That slot enables
you to add a specially designed video card — the Apple Video Card — that adds S-
video and RCA inputs for video-in and video capture.
Unfortunately, the Apple Video Card has been discontinued, and Tm not aware of a
company that's stepped in to fill the void. To get the card, you'll need to comb the
mail-order companies or check the usual used Mac parts message boards and gath-
ering places.
Chapter 13 > Digital Video 333
If you don’t own one of these Macs, your choices are only limited by the type of
expansion bus you have and what you’re willing to pay for the upgrade. Video-in
cards exist for all sorts of budgets and technologies, including PCI video-in systems
ranging in thousands of dollars for low-budget television or in-house video editing.
Or, you can spend a few hundred dollars and grab a card that’s capable of
reasonable video-in performance, along with offering regular Mac video features,
accelerated video features, and more (see Figure 13-8).
If you choose to go with FireWire, chances are you’ll be forced to buy a PCI card;
FireWire is a new enough technology that companies are unlikely to make NuBus
versions of the cards (although anything is possible). You’ll also need a FireWire-
capable video camera or similar video equipment and special software, probably
included with the FireWire card.
You’ll also find that some solutions offer both video-in and video-out capabilities,
while others require you to use a special converter to send video out to a television
or video recorder.
Table 13-3 lists some companies that offer video-in add-ons and video-out
expansion.
Figure 13-8: The Video Wizard by MicroConversions
(www.microconversions.com) is an affordable, all-in-one card with
Mac video features, video-in and video-out capability, and even a cable
TV tuner feature that installs easily in a single PCI slot.
334 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Table 13-3
Web Sites for Various Video-in and Video-out Add-on
Manufacturers
Manufacturer
Products
Web Site
Apple Computer
FireWire, video-in
WWW. apple, com
Radius
FireWire, video-in
WWW. radius .com
Micro Conversions
Video-in, video-out
www.microconversi ons . com
Digital Vision
Video-in, video-out, SCSI
solutions
www.digvi s .com
Aver Media
TV-in, video-out
www.avermedi a .com
Avid Technology
High-end digital editing
systems
www.avid.com
Media 100
High-end digital editing
systems
www.medialOO.com
ProMax
FireWire
www.promax.com
Truevision
Video-in, video-out
www.truevision.com
Video out
As mentioned in the last section, you’ll need to consider what sort of video-out
capabilities are available to you if you plan to send video from your Mac to a
television or video device. Although many video-in cards also feature this capability
(offering RCA or S-video ports that head back out to your video equipment), other
capture cards are only good for getting the video into your Mac — it’s up to you to
get it back out.
You may also find yourself in a situation where you’d like to display your Mac’s
video output to a TV or VCR. In that case, you’ll need a special output device, called
a scan converter, that converts the Mac’s RGB signal into something a TV can
understand — NTSC or PAL broadcast signals.
A scan converter is usually a box about the size of a paperback book or smaller.
The box connects to your Mac’s RGB (monitor) output port, converts the signal to
an appropriate television video format (NTSC or PAL), and then sends the signal
down the RCA or S-video cables to the video device.
Chapter 1 3 -f Digital Video 335
Television-format output capabilities are built into most AV Macs and come with
some Performa-style Macs in the form of the Apple Video System. If you suspect your
Mac may have this capability built-in, check your Monitors or Monitors & Sound con-
trol panel for an option that enables you to display output on an NTSC or PAL source.
When looking for a video-out device, you should consider a few factors:
> Resolution sync. What resolutions is the device capable of rendering on the
TV screen? You may find that 640x480 won’t be adequate for your
presentation (although much higher resolutions tend to render things difficult
to read on screen). Make sure the device is compatible with a resolution and
refresh rate that your Mac’s video can sync to.
^ Underscan capabilities. Televisions tend to overscan an image, causing the
Mac desktop to be cut off by the edges of the television set’s case. That gives
you the largest possible picture, but it might also cut off parts of the menu bar
and other screen elements. To compensate, the scan device should be able to
underscan the image, displaying it entirely on the TV screen within a black
border.
^ Quality of features. Although these devices can be very difficult to test, they
can also vary wildly in quality. If you’re looking for high-end output, you’ll
need to shop carefully to see which will work for you. Some features can be
gimmicky (screen freeze and pan-and-zoom for presentations) but others add
picture quality and sharpness you might appreciate for video-out purposes.
Your Mac can likely get away with using a video-out device that’s designed for an
Intel-compatible PC, especially if you already have a VGA adapter for your Mac’s RGB
output. This can be great if you need to connect a PowerBook, for instance, to an
existing overhead projection or presentation system. For video production work or an
in-house system, however, you'll get better results from a video-out device that's
designed to work specifically with the Mac's RGB output. You'll also have better
image quality using S-video, although the quality increase isn't always noticeable.
DV/DVCAM
Although closely related to FireWire, as far as your Mac is concerned, digital video
(DV) is an emerging standard in the world of video cameras that, for the first time,
enables handheld cameras to record full-motion video directly to a digital format.
This offers a number of improvements over analog tape-based systems, such as the
following:
4^ Data is transferred directly to your Mac. Using FireWire as the high-speed
intermediary, such DV cameras aren’t really playing their images for your
computer to digitize, as with regular videotape players and camcorders.
Because the images are already digital, they’re simply transferred to your
Mac like any other computer file.
336 Part II Performing the Upgrade
^ No generational loss. Nothing is transmitted or copied (in the analog sense) in
order to get the images into your Mac, so there’s no quality loss due to
cabling, connectors, and other variables.
4* Less expensive quality. Although DV codecs are required for getting the images
into your Mac, the quality of the digitized images you work with are more
reliant on the camera instead of the main bottleneck — the video-in ports on
your computer. Instead of paying for high-speed digitizing technology, more of
your investment gets focused on the quality of the camera.
DV is just emerging as a broadcast and professional option, and, although
consumer cameras are following suit quickly, it may be a little while before DV is
pervasive. That said, it’s a very interesting option for anyone who wants to make
high-quality video presentations that are more easily transferred to the Mac and
edited.
Getting Started with Video
If you have one of the Macs that sports built-in video or if you’ve already installed a
digital video card, getting started with digital video is simple — you just plug the
video cables into the back of the Mac and fire up a digitizing program. You’ll first
need to know a few things about your equipment, including whether or not you
need to use S-video cables or RCA video cables (see Figure 13-9), and what sort of
video standard your equipment uses (the US NTSC standard for video or the
European PAL standard).
Figure 13-9: On the left is an S-video cable and connector; on the
right, an RCA style cable and connector.
Chapter 13 ^ Digital Video 337
With the correct cabling installed on your video player or camcorder device, you’re
ready to attach the cables to your Mac’s AV ports. If you’re using RCA-style cables,
simply plug the yellow video cable into the video-in port on the back of your Mac.
(Some Macs only offer S-video ports, so an RCA video patch cable is usually
included. You may need to plug that patch cable into the S-video port first, and
then plug the RCA cable into that patch cable’s adapter.)
X
If you’re using S-video, you simply plug the S-video cable from the video device into
the S-video-in port on the back of the Mac. With the cable attached, start up a
video capture program on the Mac and test to see if any images appear. (Don’t
forget to turn on the video source.)
If you want to record both audio and video, you'll need to attach audio cables from
the video source. Some Macs offer two channel audio-in, featuring red and white RCA
connectors on the back panel of the Mac, usually near the RCA video connector. If
your Mac doesn't have these, you'll need an adapter that will enable you to connect
the RCA audio cables from your video source to the single RCA stereo miniplug con-
nector that most Macs include.
With everything wired up, fire up your Mac and launch the Video Player (or similar)
digitizing program. Turn on your video source and try to display an image (just
point the camcorder at something or tap the Play button on a VCR). If everything
works well, you can begin digitizing the video source.
From there it’s pretty much up to you. With the movie digitized, it’s become a
computer document. You can use the QuickTime MoviePlayer or another program
to edit the video, compress it (to make it better for playback on CD-ROMs or the
Internet), and then save the final result. Once you are done, you can display your
Mac’s video on a TV screen or output it to a VCR (or other, more professional
recording device), and then play the QuickTime movie. Save it to tape, if desired,
and you’ll have a complete, edited video.
Watching TV
So what about something basic and boring like watching a regular television
program on your Mac? Well, you can do it with any AV model. If it can accept a
digital-in signal, a Mac can accept a feed from a VCR or other cable tuner, acting just
as if it were a television. Or, at least, almost like a television. Most Macs — even if
they’re digital video capable — don’t include a TV tuner to enable them to translate
antennae or cable-borne signals into TV pictures. Instead, AV-capable Macs are
more like dumb TV screens that can show TV video as long as some other device
does the interpreting.
338 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
If you’d like TV tuner capabilities for your Mac, that’s another card. (Or similar add-
on.) With the exception of the MacTV, the 20th Anniversary Mac, and a few
high-end Performa models, no Mac has a dedicated TV tuner; some Performa-series
logic boards include a slot for a special Apple TV/FM Tuner expansion card. As far
as I know, only Apple has made that card for Performas and similar Power
Macintosh machines (such as the all-in-one Power Macintosh 5500 series), and they
don’t make it anymore. However, you may still be able to find it through catalog
dealers and on the used market.
Apple models that include a TV expansion slot are shown in Table 4-2 in Chapter 4.
For other Macs, a TV tuner can be added by inserting the right expansion card.
Such an expansion card can be nothing more than a tuner, or it can be a rather
advanced, full-fledged graphics subsystem. Check out ixMicro
(WWW . i xmi cro . com/), MicroConversions (www . mi croconversi ons . com/), and ATI
Technologies (www . a t i tech . com/) for new, PCI-based TV tuners; other companies
have made other cards that may still be in use.
With such a card installed in your Mac, you then hook up the cable coax connection
just as you would connect your cable to a television set. (If you have a cable
converter box, you may want to string it in between the cable input at the wall
socket and your Mac.) Next, run the Video Player software (or the TV viewing
program that came with your card) to view the TV signal and watch shows. With
compatible Apple Performa models, you can even use the TV remote control to
change channels!
Summary
> Most Macs can play digitized movies — digital video — without any extra
hardware or software because QuickTime technology is built in. But it’s also
increasingly easier to make your own digital video. Digital video is becoming
very inexpensive to experiment with and use for all sorts of business tasks. Of
course, if you’re already a video professional, you might want to look into
Mac-based systems that could make your editing tasks easier and less
expensive.
4“ On a Mac, it takes a couple different components to create a digital movie.
First, you need AV hardware; it may be built into your Mac or you may have to
buy an expansion card. Next, you’ll need to know something about
QuickTime, the Mac’s built-in digital video technology. Finally, you’ll need
some software for getting the video into your Mac.
Chapter 13 Digital Video 339
4^ Digital-video connections come in a few different flavors. If your Mac has built-
in AV capabilities, you’ll find RCA jacks and S-video ports on its back panel for
easy connections to a video source. Other Macs will require an expansion
card — like any other card, it'll be NuBus or PCI, whichever is appropriate for
your Mac. (Some Macs have a dedicated video card option, too.) You might
also be interested in FireWire, which enables you to hook up a high-speed
serial port directly to the latest camcorders, and then just copy the digital
movie to your Mac.
^ Once you hcive everything hooked up, you're ready to digitize. Sync up your
video source, and then hit record in your video player software. It's that
simple.
4* If you'd like to skip straight to the important stuff, you can add a cable tuner
to many Mac models, giving you the ability to watch television or a video feed
directly on your Mac’s desktop.
Sound, Speech,
and MIDI
I f you’ve never seen some of the old classic form factor
Macs in their carry bags, you should try to catch a glimpse
of one. It’s quite a treat (okay, I’ll go ahead and include a
snapshot as Figure 14-1). Originally thought of as portable,
those aging Macs offered you the chance to pick them up and
lug them around — if not from the dorm to the library, at least
from the dorm to back home for the holidays, I suppose.
When Apple introduced the Macintosh to the press back in
1984, Steve Jobs pulled the Mac out of just such a bag. He
plugged it into the wall, started it up, and waited for it to take
its cue. After the requisite smiley face, the first thing it did for
the press was say, out loud, “Welcome to Macintosh. It sure is
great to get out of that bag.”
Sound has been part of the Macintosh experience ever since,
with constantly advancing sound capabilities built into every
subsequent Macintosh. Eventually, Macs would become the
top platform for sound and multimedia production, with great
tools and software applications for editing sound. The Mac
would also be a musician’s tool, supporting advanced MIDI
capabilities and playback, through QuickTime MIDI and other
technologies.
And the Mac has advanced its capabilities to deal with
computer-generated speech, as well as to accept speech as a
method for inputting data. The Mac OS has built-in options,
and third-party programs extend this capability even further.
I’ll discuss speech separately a little later in the chapter.
4 - 4 ^ 4 - 4
In This Chapter
Mac's sound
capabiliHes
Buying and installing
digital audio
equiptment
Speech and speech
recognition
Working with MIDI
4 ^ > 4 ^ >
342 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Figure 14-1 : A Mac SE and its carrying case
The Mac's Audio Capabilities
The audio capabilities of a typical Mac let you accomplish three things: You can
record audio (get sound into your Mac), playback audio (get sound out of your
Mac), and edit audio (rearrange sound on your Mac). All Macs have these
capabilities built into them, with any AV Macintosh or Power Macintosh model
giving you the highest level of stereo and quality sound available.
You also have two choices as to how the audio is going to be processed by
your Mac.
One way to get audio into your Mac is to digitize it — record it to the Mac’s hard
drive. This is done in a way that’s very similar to creating digital video. A sound
source is connected to the audio input(s) on the back of the Macintosh, which
takes very quick samples of the audio as it plays. These samples are digital —
computer data — enabling them to be stored on the Mac’s hard drive. And, just as
with QuickTime movies, digital audio is simple to edit, manipulate, and play back
through your Mac’s speakers.
The other type of audio is more like a blend of a player piano script and the
PostScript printing language. It’s the Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI.
MIDI is a computer language for controlling music synthesizers — for example,
keyboards, drum machines, and electric pianos. That is, it can control pretty much
anything that can accept a MIDI interface. Through this interface (a small box that
plugs into your Mac’s serial port), instructions are transmitted between the
instrument and the Mac and back again. This allows notes played on the
Chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 34-3
synthesizer to be stored as musical notation or otherwise represented in a Mac
application. At the same time, storing these notes on your Mac means you can
instruct a MIDl-capable synthesizer to play the song whenever you get the urge.
Technically, digital sound is not really too different from digital audio, but your
Mac, depending on its age, may have the ability to read text aloud using Text-to-
Speech technology. Some more powerful Macs can even recognize your speech as a
method of input. It’s still a young technology, but it’s fun to play with, and it takes
advantage of the built-in audio capabilities of AV and Power Macs.
Take a look at how each type of Mac sound works.
Digital audio
If you record something to a cassette tape, you’re recording the entire audio
source. It all gets laid right down on the magnetic tape. Digital audio, including
audio CDs, doesn’t quite work like that. Instead, digital audio works much the
same way a movie camera does, by taking quick samples of the source and
recording them. A typical film strip is composed of individual frames that run at
about 24 frames per second to convince the human eye that the picture is moving.
Similarly, a digital-audio recording samples the audio source many thousands of
times per second to convince the ear that the digital recording is continuous.
In fact, the number of samples per second — or the frequency of the sample — is a
very real test of the quality of a recording. The more samples, the better. Measured
in kilohertz (KHz — corresponding to thousands of samples per second), the
frequency is really a measure of the complexity of the sound, telling you the range
of tonal information that’s included in the sample. The lower the frequency, the less
faithful the reproduction of the sound. An example might be a telephone call, which
has an analog frequency of 4KHz. Although you can understand what is being said,
the quality of a telephone call is really pretty bad. Think of something that someone
has sung to you (or played a recording oO over the phone. (You know, back in high
school.) Even a good singer who sings to you over the phone loses quite a bit of
their quality.
In digital sampling, you double the frequency of an analog device, so an 8KHz digital
sample would result in 4KHz analog telephone-quality. Audio CD quality is generally
considered to be 44.1 KHz, which translates into around 44,100 samples per second.
This is actually ever so slightly outside the realm of human hearing. However, the
highs and lows you can’t hear affect the overall quality of the tones you do hear,
because they help to complete one another. Audio still sounds pretty good at about
22KHz, where it’s about at the quality of cin FM radio broadcast. Audio 1 IKHz
sounds like an AM radio signal.
The other thing that’s important about a digital-sound sample is the bit depth at
which it’s sampled. Sound is usually sampled at either 8 bits or 16 bits, with the
latter offering higher quality. The sound sample is quantized, meaning the sample
must somehow be turned into a number. In an 8-bit sample, you’ve got 2” or 256
344 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
choices for the number. Because the number Is not likely to fit neatly into one of
256 slots, it has to be mathematically rounded, which introduces errors. 8-bit
samples are much smaller than 16-bit samples (in the amount of storage space they
require), but they generate more random noise, often hissing. 16-bit samples offer
2“* or 65,536 choices. This makes for a much more accurate reading.
The third factor is called channel depth, which is an overly fancy way of factoring in
whether or not the sample is in stereo. If it is, that takes twice as much storage
space as a mono signal, because stereo requires separate right and left channels.
All taken together, the frequency, bit depth, and channel depth of a sample help to
decide exactly how much disk space your digital recordings will take up. And that
can be quite a bit. Table 14-1 quantifies the relationship between quality and
storage space.
Table 14-1
Disk Space Consumed by Stereo Audio Samples
Sample rate
Quality
Space at
8 Bits
Space at
16 Bits
30 min
recording (16-bit)
8KHz
Telephone
16KBps
32KBps
57.6MB
11 KHz
AM Radio
22KBps
44KBps
79.2MB
22KHZ
FM Radio
44KBps
BBKBps
15B.4MB
44KHZ
Audio CD
BBKBps
176KBps
316.8MB
Surprised at the sizes? If you’ve worked with digital audio samples in the past, you
might think the table is running a tad high; after all, you’ve listened to long samples
that didn’t take up nearly that much space. In cases like that, you’re probably
dealing with a compressed audio file. Compression is common in the digital-audio
world, and a number of compression schemes are very effective, resulting in high-
quality sound that takes up a lot less disk space than an uncompressed file. Be
aware, however, that as you record digital samples, you often can’t compress them
on the fly (at least, not without some quality issues). Instead, you’ll have to record
the full sample first, and then compress it. That can require even more disk space,
at least temporarily while you work with the file.
I want to tell you more about compression schemes and which ones work best
for most audio files, but first 1 need to tell you a little about file formats before we
move on.
Chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 34-5
File formats
Just like any other pursuit on a computer, digital-audio creation generates
computer files. And, like QuickTime and digital video, there are plenty of these
formats. It seems that nearly every operating system — Mac OS, Windows, Solaris,
SGI, Amiga — has its own audio scheme, along with a few other sound file formats
designed to be cross-platform or used in a completely different technology (such as
consumer electronics). These days, QuickTime helps the user with a lot of these
formats, enabling import and export of sound data to a variety of formats,
depending on the usage.
Here are a few of the more common sound file formats along with their origins and
uses (note that sound on a Mac is usually governed by QuickTime, so I’ve included
the formats that QuickTime deals with well):
^ AU. Also know as the p-law format, this popular sound file format is native to
Sun and Next workstations. Seen as something of a lowest common
denominator on the Web, AU can’t reach beyond 8KHz in most cases (some
alternative implementations sample at about 22KHz). The result is a
telephone-quality sound file that’s small, so it’s popular on the Internet.
4- AIFF/AIFC. Apple’s own original file format — the Audio Interchange File
Format — was good, but uncompressible in its first incarnation, so Apple
extended the format with AIFC. These sounds can sample at the highest
rates — stereo, 16-bit, 44.1 KHz samples — but they require a lot of disk space
to do it. Standard MACE compression of 3:1 or 6:1 isn’t recommended by
Apple anymore, so experiment with new QuickTime compression schemes,
covered in the next section.
WAV. The WAV format is native to Microsoft Windows and therefore popular.
(WAV started its life before that, though, as a joint effort between Microsoft
and IBM during the heyday of DOS.) It works pretty much as AIFC does, with a
full range of sample rates and the ability to take on compression schemes.
QuickTime translates existing WAV files and exports to WAV.
> MPEG. Popular as both a video and audio format, MPEG sets the standard for
a number of applications — for example, CD-ROM video and high-quality,
compressed audio. MPEG is all about quality compression. The MPEG Level II
standard supported by QuickTime allows for compression of files by 6:1 or 7:1
without noticeable quality loss. The MPEG standard is determined by the
Motion Picture Experts Group.
> Sound Designer II. In case you’re curious, QuickTime natively supports the
Sound Designer 11 format, enabling you to digitally swap files that are saved in
the popular application format. Sound Designer 11 is a sound-editing
application written by DigiDesign (www. di gi desi gn . com).
oo
346 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Compression
Hand-in-hand with the audio file formats come various types of compression that
can be used to make the sounds take up less storage space or transmit more
quickly over mediums such as the Internet or a SCSI connection to your CD-ROM
drive. Compression offers a trade-off between quality and size, enabling you to fit
the audio sample to your needs. Fortunately, standards such as the MPEG
compression schemes don’t trade much quality for gains in storage compression.
There are many different compression schemes for audio, with some of those
schemes designed for specific purposes — voice, music, Internet transmission, and
video conferencing. QuickTime has opened up an entire world of these
compression schemes, many of which can be used to compress the audio tracks of
a QuickTime movie (even if a QuickTime file is audio-only, it’s called a movie.)
For regular audio formats (those non-QuickTime formats discussed in the previous
section), the compression schemes are a bit more limited. Over the years, a few
have emerged as common, with some of them associated specifically with
particular sound formats. These schemes tend to be designed to give general
compression capabilities to a wide variety of sound file types and uses (as opposed
to newer compression schemes designed specifically for the task at hand — for
example, compression voice transmission versus music).
You1l find a program like SoundApp (located on the CD-ROM that accompanies this book)
very adept at translating between the audio file formats that are common to the Mac, as
well as adding basic compression schemes to make the files smaller.
Let’s take a look at some of the general purpose audio-compressor technologies
you may run into:
4 pLaw. Pronounced “mu-law” for p, the Greek character mu, this compressor is
typically applied to AU sound files, originally a Sun format. Compression is
2:1, and the compression takes place quickly — fast enough to happen
immediately the sound is digitized.
4 MACE. This Mac-based compression technology isn’t really recommended by
Apple anymore, even though it was an early favorite for developing
QuickTime audio tracks. MACE works quickly and compresses well, but
quality of the reproduction is low. The format only supports 8-bit samples, but
can compress at 3:1 and 6:1 ratios.
4 IMA/ADPCM. IMA supports 16-bit sounds only, but compresses them at 4:1
with decent quality. Good for compressing audio in an interim stage, for
temporary hard-drive storage, or for compressing audio before committing it
to tape. Compression takes place very quickly.
Chapter 14 ^ Sound, Speech, and MIDI 347
4 MPEG. Like the file format, MPEG compression is popular for many consumer-
oriented purposes such as CD-ROM audio for games or as part of an MPEG
video track for computing. Other uses abound as well. Compression is really
good, around 8:1 or more before quality degrades. MPEG is computer
intensive during the compression stages and requires modern computers for
playback, although audio doesn’t demand as much as MPEG video. (Some
Macs have even included hardware to accelerate MPEG playback.)
Those are some of the commonly distributed formats, although they’re not the only
ones. Some audio codecs are proprietary, designed specifically to be used with the
encoder or server software created by the owner of the codec. Examples would be
the Voxware codecs, RealAudio codecs, and others. You may find that QuickTime
gives you access to these, if they’re installed. You might enjoy trying them out.
One major coup for QuickTime 3.0 when it came out was the inclusion of the
Sorensen codecs for video and audio, both of which generate excellent quality with
small file formats, making them great compressors for streaming audio and video
over the Internet.
MIDI
Up until now I’ve been talking about using a computer as a digital recording device.
Philosophically, there really isn’t too much difference between recording digitally
and recording to an analog source. Of course, it’s convenient to record digitally, as
it allows you to pick up bits of a recorded clip and drop them somewhere else for
unprecedented control and speed in editing. But for the most part, the results are
similar.
MIDI, in a way, really represents a leap forward in thinking. With MIDI, computers
have a language that actually enables them to control electronic musical
instruments. Your Mac can issue commands to synthesizers to turn on and off
notes, adjust the volume, change modulation, and do a number of other things.
The short of it: MIDI controls more than one synthesizer from a single keyboard or
computer. Using different channels to communicate over a chain of MIDI devices,
you can pretty much create as large an orchestral sound as your budget can
support. Music professionals, hobbyists, and music teachers can all benefit from a
number of MIDI advantages, including the computer’s ability to annotate music as
it’s played on the keyboard (see Figure 14-2).
348 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Figure 14-2: A MIDI annotation program diligently marking notes as they're played
(Shown is Passport Designs' Encore.)
MIDI requires a few basic components. QuickTime is an integral part; in fact, you
can work with and edit music on your Mac without having a synthesizer of any sort
connected if you use the one that’s built into QuickTime. This is a little limiting,
because stand-alone synthesizers offer much better sound, but it does make it
possible to turn your computer — even a PowerBook — into a musical synthesizer,
using the computer keyboard for musical input.
In most cases you’ll want to connect synthesizers to your Mac. The components for
such a setup include the following:
> MIDI interface. This one is for your Mac. You’ll need a MIDI converter box to
communicate with MIDI devices through your Mac’s serial port. These
interfaces are often little boxes about the size of cassette tapes, although they
can be much larger and more feature-laden.
^ MIDI-capable synthesizer. Most folks will want a keyboard synthesizer as the
anchor of their MIDI recording system, but plenty of options abound for
synthesizers — drums, guitars, bass guitars, and generic-looking electronic
boxes that make all sorts of noise. Most important will be MIDI connections —
look for the 5-pin IN, OUT, and (often) THRU connectors on the back of the
instrument.
Chapter 14 > Sound, Speech, and MIDI 349
4* MIDl-capable software. Your Mac is not going to be much good if it doesn’t
have a software application to accept and interpret the MIDI data being sent
from your synthesizers. Many of the software packages available are called
sequencers, meaning they record the notes being played, and then enable you
to rearrange them, layer them on top of other notes (for fuller-orchestral
effects), and edit them. Other programs are for annotation, teaching music,
and turning your Mac into a player-piano/music-aiitomation system.
With these components in place, you’re ready to start sending commands over the
MIDI interface. You do this in one direction or the other: from the synthesizer to the
computer or from the computer to the synthesizer, depending on what you’re
trying to do.
The MIDI language is fairly standard, although it can be augmented by commands
for particular synthesizers or language sets created by certain manufacturers.
Overall, though, the language is basically a series of commands sent out as bytes of
data that are mostly notes to be played. There’s other info, too, including what
channel the commands are intended for and how long they should be played.
Each channel is technically a different instrument — if you have classic synthesizers
at your disposal, they probably synthesize one sound at a time, such as a piano, a
drum set, or something similar. Some modern instruments allow for a number of
different instrument sounds to be played at once. These synthesizers can be
assigned a number of different channels so that different data streams are all
accepted by the same instrument. That’s how you can use MIDI to command an
entire rock band to play through a single keyboard synthesizer, for instance.
When shopping for a MIDI-compatible synthesizer, you may come across some basic
terms related to the size of the orchestra the keyboard is able to reproduce.
Polyphony represents the number of discrete notes that can be played at once — 32
or 64 notes isn't unheard of. Timbres refers to the number of instruments that can be
played simultaneously by the synthesizer, although you may find the synthesizer
refers to timbres as channels or instruments. Sixteen separate instruments isn't
uncommon, although some really good synthesizers are only capable of playing one
instrument — that's very well reproduced -at a time.
Being able to assign all these different instruments to different channels could get
confusing — confusing enough, in fact, that you might not ever be able to reproduce
a MIDI song correctly on a different set of equipment, which would make MIDI less
than worthwhile as a standard. So, another standard, General MIDI, governs the
first 128 voices on any MIDI synthesizer that supports multiple voices. This makes
it a simple matter for a MIDI file to specify the instrument, channel, and a particular
quality for that instrument. That’s part of what enables MIDI files to be saved and
played on different computers or equipment.
350 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
General MIDI is split into the 16 different channels supported by MIDI, with one
major instrument type assigned to each channel (except Channel 10, which is
reserved for unique percussion instruments). The major instrument groups include
the Piano, Chromatic Percussion, Organ, Guitar, Bass, Strings, Ensemble, Brass,
Reed, Pipe, Synthetic Lead, Synthetic Pad, Synthetic Effects (FX), Ethnic,
Percussive, and Sound Effects. Each of these main instruments offers eight sub-
instruments, which results in the total of 128.
Of course, the quality of the sound isn’t governed by the General MIDI specification,
just the sound type that the synthesizer is supposed to make. So, your results may
vary. Table 14-2 shows you the different General MIDI instruments.
Note
Aside from supporting the 128 General MIDI instruments, other criteria add up to
making an instrument truly General MIDI compatible (as defined by the MIDI
Manfacturer^s Association — www. mi di .org). The instrument must also support at
least 24-voice polyphony, must support different instruments on all 16 channels, and
must respond to certain basic General MIDI commands, such as fine tuning and pitch
bend. If a keyboard qualifies, it can display a General MIDI logo.
Table 14-2
General MIDI Instruments
Instrument
Number
Piano
Channel 0
Acoustic Grand Piano
1
Bright Acoustic Piano
2
Electric Grand Piano
3
Honky-tonk Piano
4
Electric Piano 1
5
Electric Piano 2
6
Harpsichord
7
Clavi
8
Chromatic Percussion
Channel 1
Celesta
9
Glockenspiel
10
Music Box
11
Chapter 14 4- Sound, Speech, and MIDI 351
Instrument
Number
Vibraphone
12
Marimba
13
Xylophone
14
Tubular Bells
15
Dulcimer
16
Organ
Channel 2
Drawbar Organ
17
Percussive Organ
18
Rock Organ
19
Church Organ
20
Reed Organ
21
Accordion
22
Harmonica
23
Tango Accordion
24
Guitar
Channel 3
Acoustic Guitar (Nylon)
25
Acoustic Guitar (Steel)
26
Electric Guitar (Jazz)
27
Electric Guitar (Clean)
28
Electric Guitar (Muted)
29
Overdriven Guitar
30
Distortion Guitar
31
Guitar Harmonics
32
Bass
Channel 4
Acoustic Bass
33
Electric Bass (Finger)
34
Electric Bass (Pick)
35
Fretless Bass
36
(continued)
352 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Table 14-2 (continued)
Instrument
Number
Slap Bass 1
37
Slap Bass 2
38
Synth Bass 1
39
Synth Bass 2
40
String
Channel 5
Violin
41
Viola
42
Cello
43
Contrabass
44
Tremolo Strings
45
Pizzicato Strings
46
Orchestral Harp
47
Timpani
48
Ensemble
Channel 6
String Ensemble 1
49
String Ensemble 2
50
Synth Strings 1
51
Synth Strings 2
52
Choir Aahs
53
Voice Oohs
54
Synth Voice
55
Orchestra Hit
56
Brass
Channel 7
Trumpet
57
Trombone
58
Tuba
59
Chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 353
Instrument
Number
Muted Trumpet
60
French Horn
61
Brass Section
62
SynthBrass 1
63
SynthBrass 2
64
Reed
Channel 8
Soprano Sax
65
Alto Sax
66
Tenor Sax
67
Baritone Sax
68
Oboe
69
English Horn
70
Bassoon
71
Clarinet
12
Pipe
Channel 9
Piccolo
73
Flute
74
Recorder
75
Pan Flute
76
Blown Bottle
77
Shakuhachi
78
Whistle
79
Ocarina
80
Synth Lead
Channel 11
Lead 1 (Square)
81
Lead 2 (Sawtooth)
82
Lead 3 (Calliope)
83
Lead 4 (Chiff)
84
Lead 5 (Charang)
85
Lead 6 (Voice)
86
(continued)
354 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Table 14-2 (continued)
Instrument
Number
Lead 7 (Fifths)
87
Lead 8 (Bass + Lead)
88
Synth Pad
Channel 12
Pad 1 (New Age)
89
Pad 2 (Warm)
90
Pad 3 (Polysynth)
91
Pad 4 (Choir)
92
Pad 5 (Bowed)
93
Pad 6 (Metallic)
94
Pad 7 (Halo)
95
Pad 8 (Sweep)
96
Synth Effects
Channel 13
FX 1 (Rain)
97
FX 2 (Soundtrack)
98
FX 3 (Crystal)
99
FX 4 (Atmosphere)
100
FX 5 (Brightness)
101
FX 6 (Goblins)
102
FX 7 (Echoes)
103
FX 8 (Sci-fi)
104
Ethnic
Channel 14
Sitar
105
Banjo
106
Shamisen
107
Koto
108
Kalimba
109
Bag pipe
no
Fiddle
111
Chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 355
Instrument
Number
Shanai
112
Percussive
Channel 15
Tinkle Bell
113
Agogo
114
Steel Drums
115
Woodblock
116
Taiko Drum
117
Melodic Tom
118
Synth Drum
119
Reverse Cymbal
120
Sound Effects
Channel 16
Guitar Fret Noise
121
Breath Noise
122
Seashore
123
Bird Tweet
124
Telephone Ring
125
Helicopter
126
Applause
127
Gunshot
128
The Standard MIDI File (SMF) is a third standard in the MIDI world, this one a file
format. Like .DOC for Microsoft Word documents or .AIFC for compressible Mac
audio files, .MID or .MIDI is a standard filename extension that suggests a universal
MIDI file. In nearly all cases, something that’s capable of playing MIDI files can deal
with SMF. This includes MIDI sequencers, players, and even the Mac’s MoviePlayer
with QuickTime installed (see Figure 14-3).
356 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Figure 14-3: The MoviePlayer playing a MIDI file. It's played on the QuickTime General
MIDI library, which gives pretty true sound through the Mac's speakers.
Speech technologies
As I mentioned before, speech technologies don’t really require anything special to
work, because they use the same basic sound hardware that’s built into recent
Macs. For speech recognition, that’s any recent AV Macintosh or Power Macintosh
(early Macs have Text-to-Speech capability, but not speech recognition, which
debuted on the AV Macintosh series with the code name “Casper”). In fact, Macs
that are equipped for speech recognition even come with a special microphone
called the PlainTalk microphone, shown in Figure 14-4. (PlainTalk is Apple’s name
for the technology used for speech recognition.)
So, no particular hardware needs to be added. What’s needed is software.
Chapter 14 4- Sound, Speech, and MIDI 357
Figure 14-4: The Speech control panel gives
you control over speech recognition and
Text‘tO“Speech technology.
Speech technologies are handled by the Speech Manager, an add-on to the Mac OS
that handles speech responsibilities. Head to the Apple menu and look for a control
panel called Speech in Mac OS 7.6 and above. It’s the center of operations for Text-
to-Speech and speech recognition.
r Cross- \
Reference}
The Speech control panel enables you to do a number of things. You can pick basic
elements, such as what voice you want your Mac to use and whether or not you
want the Mac to read all alert boxes. You can change the volume and rate of speech.
(If you’re looking at the control panel right now and you notice that you have at
least this many options, you’re enabled for Text-to-Speech technology.)
If you can’t seem to find a Speech control panel, make sure the control panel is in the
Control Panels folder in the System Folder and the extensions Speech Manager and
Speech Recognition (if desired) are in the Extensions folder. Extension troubleshoot-
ing is discussed in Chapter 32.
This technology allows your Mac to actually read the text it finds in enabled
applications. One such application is Apple’s shining centerpiece to new
technologies — SimpleText. To get your Mac to read text to you, open a file in
SimpleText and type something (or open an existing text document). In the
SimpleText menu bar, select Sound, and then choose Speak All. Your Mac should
start to talk to you.
You can also highlight text in SimpleText and choose Sounds Speak Selection. This
will cause your Mac to just read the highlight portion aloud (see Figure 14-5).
358 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
i nie Edtt Font sue Stylt
Fourscore and seven years ago oi Erase
conceived in liberty and dedicate |
Now we are engaged in a great ci
conceived and sodedicated can 1o
SB
upon this continent, a new nation, p
‘all nrien are created equal ]
that nation or any nation so
a great battle field of that war We
have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave
their lives that that nation might live It Is altogether fitting and proper that we should do
this.
But. In a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate -- we can not hollow —
this ground. The brave men. living and dead, who struggled here, hove consecrated it. far above
our poor power to odd or detract
The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it con never forget what
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished worlc which
they who fought here hove thus far so nobly advanced It is rather for us to be here dedicated
to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here
highly resolve that these dead shall not hove died in vain — that this nation, under God. shall
have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth
Figure 14-5: SimpleText showcases another Mac technology, Text-to-Speech.
With the Speech Recognition extension enabled, you can do even more. The Speech
control panel now changes to offer a number of other options, including Speakable
Items. Choosing this menu item from the Speech control panel, and then enabling
Speakable Items, will bring to the screen a new little window — one that puts a face
on your Mac (see Figure 14-6).
Now, with the PlainTalk microphone (or a compatible line-level mike) plugged into
the sound-in port on the back of your Mac, you’re ready to chat with it. You’ll find a
list of recognizable commands in the Speakable Items folder that’s stored in the
Apple Menu Items folder. (Access Speakable Items from the Apple menu.) You can
add your own Speakable Items: Add aliases for programs you want to launch, and
then say “Launch name of program, "" and the Mac should recognize that command
and execute it. In a similar way, you could store AppleScripts in the Speakable Items
folder, making your Mac pretty much do anything you can think of.
The Speech control panel gives you some other customizations as well, including
the opportunity to change the voice your Mac uses and to change how your Mac
knows to respond to a spoken command — you can have your Mac ignore anything
it hears until you say something specific, such as “Computer,” or you hit a
particular keystroke sequence.
Chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 359
4 Hie Edit View Special Help
Speech
— Options: f 3po«>o»W Hon»s Z 1
Tho SpoWciblo opKcn loti vm «ptn (or stirl up) Homs vt
tho Spoilcofalo Homs foktor Ixj ipoikirw] thoir ntmos.
SpoOkiblo lioms is («U On
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0 Rocognuo 'OK' ond 'Cmool ’ buttoni
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Spoakable llema is resdg
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Audio CD 1
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App Launcher W Mac t»qrade
Documents
Desktop Stuff
Web tools
Web Sites
Transfer
Figure 14-6: Enabling Speakable Items introduces a new element to your Mac's interface.
Add-ons exist for Apple’s PlainTalk technology, including some products that build
on the Mac’s capabilities and take them further:
-f MacYack (Scantron Quality Computers, v^ww . 1 owtek . com/macyack) extends
Text-to-Speech with additional voices, adds speech to most applications, and
uses Text-to-Speech more often in the Mac OS.
> Power Secretary (Dragon Systems, www.dragonsys . com) adds full-fledged
discrete voice recognition to a Mac OS system, so you can dictate typing and
control the computer.
4- WriterOutloud and Co:Wriler (Don Johnston, www. exeepe . com: 80/
~1 abres/dj . html). Write:OulIoud is a word processor that reads text out
loud as it’s typed; Co:Writer is a text prediction program that predicts
possible words to help typing/learning impaired users work more quickly.
4 JABRA earphone (JABRA, www . jabra . com) is an earpiece/microphone
combination that aids in speech recognition and other speech tasks, including
using your Mac as a standard telephone or an Internet telephone.
360 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
4 MicNotepad Lite (Nirvana Research, www.moof.com/ni rvana) is a freeware
application that records voice to your Mac, enabling you to use your Mac as a
fairly sophisticated transcription device that runs in the background, slows
down the recording to catch up with typing, and bookmarks certain passages.
It doesn’t use much speech technology, per se, but it’s interesting
nonetheless.
4 MacIRC (Chris Bergmann, www .maci rc . com) is an Internet Relay Chat client
that speaks text as it appears in the application.
4 SurfTalk (Digital Dreams, www.surftal k.com) is a background application
that accepts speech commands and uses them to surf the Web in Netscape
Navigator. The program makes any hyperlinks speakable and recognizes
commands such as “Go back” and “Bookmark.”
4 Plaintalk Plug-ins (speech .apple . com/pl ug) is a page for links to speech-
related plug-ins for Web browsers. They include plug-ins that will read Web
pages to you as well as plug-ins that enable you to maneuver on the Web using
speech commands.
The PlainTalk microphone is different from the standard karaoke model -or even a
higher-end type — that you'd buy in the local electronics store. That's because the
microphone port on newer Macs is actually a line-level input, the same sort you'd use
to connect a tape deck or CD player to your home receiver or amplifier. This means a
device connected to that port needs to provide line-level Input, and most micro-
phones, aside from the special PlainTalk ones, don't. If you find one, though, feel free
to plug it in and try it. Otherwise, you'll need to plug regular mikes into a mixing
board or amplifier first.
Sound Hardware and Software
To get sounds in and out of your Mac — whether it’s digital sound or MIDI sound —
you’ll need to hook some things up to your Mac. For digital audio, you may find a
lot of what you need is built-in to your Mac, especially in later models. All AV
Macintosh and Power Macintosh computers have 16-bit stereo-in and 16-bit stereo-
out capabilities. But if your Mac is younger than that, or if you want more than just
single stereo input, you’ll need to go shopping for an expansion card. And you’ll
need software to do the actually digitizing, storing, and mixing of sounds.
As far as MIDI goes, you can consider a whole range of add-ons if you’re interested
in adding digital music to your Mac’s repertoire. I’ll show you many of the options,
and how to install them, in this section.
chapter 14 -f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 361
Digital audio hardware
Since digital audio became a rage in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Macs have been
on the scene with built-in capabilities that were certainly adequate for a lot of audio
editing. With early adoption of CD technology players, SCSI for CD creation and a
full range of digital audio capabilities built-in, the Mac has been ready for serious
production for years. Early Macs, however, suffer from low-end audio capabilities
(issues like 8-bit sound and mono inputs) that keep them from being more than just
adequate for audio editing. To add good digital-audio capture capabilities, you’ll
need to add a sound card.
Better Audio
Newer Macs can suffer from sound that isn’t the best, too. Only the 8500, 8600,
and G3 Minitower series of Macs have sported RCA-style connectors for audio, for
instance, with the rest of the stereo audio-capable Macs using a stereo miniplug.
Although this isn’t an awful solution, professionals may squirm at the ten or so
decibels of noise that a miniplug can add to the mix. In general, a pro-level sound
card can add better noise reduction, digital connectors (for downloading digital
data directly from digital-audio sources such as DAT recorders), and on-board
digital signal processors (DSP) for more advanced effects.
These cards install like any other NuBus or PCI cards and should be quickly
recognized by your Macintosh. Only a handful of professional audio manufacturers
make the cards, especially in the face of improved built-in capabilities in the latest
Mac models. Companies making audio I/O cards include the following:
-f DigiDesign (www . d1 gi desi gn . com). This clear leader in the field of Mac
audio products offers a few different cards that feature multiple audio
connections, improved sound quality, and DSP functions. The AudioMedia II
(NuBus) and III (PCI) cards are tops at improving on the Mac’s basic internal
sound capabilities.
^ Korg (wv/w . korg . com). Known for keyboards and other musical equipment,
Korg also offers a fantastic PCI-based interface card for Macs that supports up
to 12 different audio channels or separate tracks, including digital and analog
connections.
4- Lucid Technologies (www. 1 uci dtechnol ogi es . com). Offering digital-only PCI
and NuBus solutions, Lucid cards can accept S/PDIF digital input or connect
to rack-mount solutions that digitize multiple analog audio sources.
4 Emagic (www.emagi c .de). This company also provides audio cards that offer
multiple inputs and outputs, enabling individual tracks to be recorded in
audio software.
362 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
You'll see the letters S/PDIF often in audio hardware literature. If you're unfamiliar
with it, it's a popular digital-audio interface for high-end consumer and professional
audio hardware such as DAT components.
Audio mixing
I personally can attest that any Power Mac Is simple to hook up to a mixing board,
for instance, which can allow you to do basic voice work or Internet radio
broadcasts with little additional equipment (see Figure 14-7). Obviously, you could
perform music editing and similar work with such a setup as well, using the Mac as
little more than a digital tape recorder and editing base. For higher-end editing,
though, you may find it even more fun to bring in each channel of audio separately,
and then do all your editing in a digital-editing software application.
Figure 14-7: Basic audio mixing can be done using your Mac as a
recording device and post-processor.
With a setup like this one, the mixing board preprocesses the signal, mixing it
before It gets inside your Mac. The sounds are then recorded as a single track inside
your computer, even if you have, say, multiple voices speaking and audio
underneath it. All that is mixed in the mixing board, and then recorded to your
computer as if it were simply a digital-audio tape machine. Of course, that’s not
completely accurate, because you can cut, paste, and otherwise edit the digital
audio, even if it’s premixed. You can also run special effects on the recorded track
to give the entire recording reverb, echo, fade, or any other combination of effects.
chapter 14 > Sound, Speech, and MIDI 363
For instance, I use this setup to record digital audio for Webcasting — talk shows
over the World Wide Web. Usually, that means 1 just need to record a few voices and
maybe a phone call — all of which is premixed by my Mackie (www . ma c k i e . c om)
mixing board. 1 then record it to the Mac and edit out anything that doesn’t sound
good or isn’t tight enough. For the final go-around, 1 record some music that I can
use as an intro and outro to the piece, adding another track to the recording that I
can match up with the first one. 1 piece the tracks all together so it fits nicely (see
Figure 14-8), and save the entire file as a digital audio file — usually MFC. The next
step is to run the file through a compression program that’s aimed at Web
broadcasting (probably something from RealNetworks or using QuickTime Pro).
Figure 14-8: Shown is my file, as viewed through SoundEdit 16 from Macromedia.
On top is the audio from the speaking part of the show; on bottom is audio iVe
added later.
Compared to most, my approach is very basic, and it betrays what little training
I’ve had in radio production. For the most part, the level on the microphones, the
quality of the phone call, and the overall feel of the show are accomplished
manually in my studio, using dials and buttons on a mixing board. It’s probably
sufficient for what I’m trying to accomplish. But digital musicians and serious
editors would look at my setup and scoff.
364 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
The reason? You can do all the mixing on screen if you have a powerful enough Mac
and the right add-on hardware. Instead of using a mixing board and recording it all
at once (flaws, miscues, and bad settings included), you can record raw audio for
each of any number of sources — for example, a microphone, a phone line, an
electric guitar. Using a virtual mixing board in software you can then process the
audio and mix it all together without being forced to do anything over if it isn’t set
up correctly the first time. The mixing and production work take place at the same
time, giving you much more flexibility.
As an example of the differences between the two approaches, let’s say 1 have a talk
show that also features a cohost. Doing it my way, the show is recorded through the
mixing board into which we’ve both connected our microphones. There’s only one
recorded track that includes both our voices. So, if her mike is a bit louder than
mine, or if we get a weird echo from her setup and none from mine, there’s little 1
can do to process that out using the computer.
If we’re each recording to separate tracks, however, I have more possibilities. I can
bring her volume down some or use an audio editing program to process my voice
a little bit to add the same echo. I can also edit her out when 1 didn’t like an answer
she gave, or use other controls to make it sound as though one of us is farther away
from the other.
To do this, though, 1 can’t have just a single audio input into the Mac. Instead, I’ve
got to force the Mac to notice that it has a number of different ciudio sources
connected to it, so that it will record each to its own track. That requires additional
hardware.
The hardware usually comes in the form of something rack-mountable, the sort of
thing you’d find in an ultra high-end stereo component system or, more likely, a
radio station. These systems offer a number of different analog and digital inputs,
which let you hook up many sources for multitrack recording (see Figure 14-9). The
audio interface is then connected to a special expansion card that performs digital
signal processing (DSP) tasks as well as feeding the channels of audio to the mixing
application.
Figure 14-9: These rack-mount designs make it easy to add multiple analog tracks —
just plug your equipment into the interface instead of into a mixing board. Now the
raw audio can be edited completely digitally. (This one is from DigiDesign —
www.digidesign.com.)
Chapter 14 > Sound, Speech, and MIDI 365
The implications of this are significcint for professional-level audio editing. Even if
you mix everything (voices, audio, effects) “live”, you can drop out any component
that you want to, rearrange them, or otherwise edit without affecting some other
part of the session. For instance, you can cut four minutes from your cohost’s
diatribe without creating jerky cuts in the music that was in the background,
because it’s on a different track.
Beyond these solutions is where serious money is spent — digital editing
workstations. Although you supply the Mac yourself, the rest of it comes along
for the price tag. Often, digital-editing workstations include multiple NuBus or PCI
cards, rack-mount hardware, and multitrack editing software. The names you hear
in this arena include DigiDesign’s ProTools series of workstations, which features
the ProTools software for multitrack management. Sonic Solutions
(WV./W. soni c . com) offers a dizzying array of solutions as well, including digital-
audio workstations, radio-station management suites, and editing studios for
motion-picture audio. Another familiar name might be Avid Technology
(WWW .avid, com), the parent company for DigiDesign and manufacturer of high-
end audio/video workstations for integrating sound and video.
Audio software
Once you have the hardware and the equipment, you’re ready to bring the audio
into your Mac. You’ll want an audio-editing program that can accept the audio feed,
work with the audio, and output it in an acceptable way. If you’ll be dealing with the
audio from a poor Mac’s point of view — one track at a time — you’ll want to focus
very closely on the editing software and its capabilities. Big-time users — those with
multiple channels of audio coming into the computer at the same time — will need
even heftier software for recording and mixing all those channels at once.
At its most basic, audio needs to be digitized and saved to disk in a familiar audio format.
Many applications are capable of doing this, including shareware and freeware programs
such as SoundApp, which is included on the CD-ROM with this book.
Beyond these programs are professional-level sound-digitizing and editing packages
that allow for multiple tracks, drag-and-drop editing, and adding effects. The most
popular of these programs include DigiDesign’s SoundDesigner II and Macromedia’s
SoundEdit 16 (www . macromedi a . com). In fact, you may recall QuickTime’s bow to
SoundDesigner’s popularity; QuickTime can read and work with SoundDesigner II
files without translation. EMagic offers a few entries in this class, including Logic
Audio Discovery. Opcode’s AudioShop is also an option (www . opcode . com).
Finally, the upper crust of editing software includes audio-management systems
and mixing environments — software designed to piece together four, eight, or more
channels of audio that has been edited in SoundDesigner or SoundEdit. These
programs are used in lieu of actual sound mixing boards to provide levels, effects,
and other sequencing tasks to bring an entire production together. They’re also
366 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
offered by the usual suspects: DigiDesign’s ProTools software, Macromedia’s Deck II
package, EMagic’s Logic Audio. In this same vein, Opcode offers StudioVision, and
Mark of the Unicorn (www . motu . com) offers Digital Performer, both of which
integrate not only hard disk storage, digital audio, and mixing, but MIDI capabilities
as well.
You'll find that there's a thriving plug-in market for SoundDesigner and the like. These
plug-ins tend to add effects, sound cleaning, and other interesting features that might
address a need you have in the realm of professional audio. Although I'm loathe to
recommend a particular store for your purchases, even as strictly an information
source. Computers and Sound (www.computersandmusic.com) is one of the bet-
ter sites I've found on the Web. Its strong leanings toward Mac solutions don't hurt,
either.
MIDI stuff
MIDI hardware runs a similar gamut to digital-audio hardware; there’s a MIDI
solution for just about anything you’re trying to do. At the most basic level, you
need a MIDI translation device that gives your Mac the same MIDI ports that
keyboards and other synthesizers already have built into them. The MIDI translator
isn’t a terribly unwieldy device, as its only function is to connect MIDI ports to your
Mac via a serial connection (see Figure 14-10).
Figure 14-10: A basic MIDI translator from Opcode (www.opcode.com)
chapter 14 'f Sound, Speech, and MIDI 367
From there, MIDI equipment gets more and more advanced, offering higher-end
sequencing, more connections for additional instruments, built-in clocks for
synchronization, and other tidbits, such as rack-mount form factors and LED
indicators. You’ll find most MIDI hardware coming from two manufacturers: Opcode
and Mark of the Unicorn, although patch cables and noncomputer MIDI hardware is
made by a variety of musical-instrument manufacturers.
MIDI software varies in price and purpose as well, with the low end being notation
software. These packages listen in on a MIDI-capable musical instrument while you
play, and then translate your work to musical notation for editing or printing. The
software will then, generally, play back the song using a MIDI device or MIDI library
such as QuickTime’s built-in MIDI voices.
Sequencing software allows you to play a MIDI instrument, record what you’ve
done, edit it. and then add more and more tracks of MIDI instruments — up to the
16 channels that MIDI allows. You can then use sequencing software to play back all
the MIDI commands at once, managing a studio full of instruments if you have them
all hooked up to the Mac.
More and more common, too, are MIDI sequencing programs that have grown to
include digital audio as well. These programs add digital and MIDI audio together,
manage all the instruments and tracks, and then output to analog or digital sources,
depending on your connections and capabilities. At the highest end you could
easily integrate a MIDI orchestra of music with dialog from a motion picture and lay
it all down on the QuickTime audio track of a digital movie.
Companies that make MIDI software include the following:
> Coda Music Technology (www . codamusi c . com) makes a few notation
programs, including Allegro and the high-end standard. Finale. Coda also
makes other MIDI applications, including the Vivace Practice Studio, which
accompanies a practicing musician with intelligent backup music, along with
tuning help and other teaching tools.
> Passport Designs (www. pas sport des1 gns.com) offers a variety of notation
and other MIDI software packages, including both annotation and educational
software.
Invision Interactive (www . cybersound . com). The Cybersound Studio MIDI
sequencing package is aimed at hobbyists and beginning musicians interested
in writing their own songs.
> Mark of the Unicorn (www . mot u . com) offers a full range of software MIDI
solutions including Mosaic for music notation; FreeStyle for sequencing cind
notation; FreeMIDI, a freeware solution for controlling MIDI hardware; and
Digital Performer, the high-end MIDI/Digital audio studio.
368 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
4 Opcode (WWW . opcode . com). Aside from Studio Vision Pro, Opcode’s
MIDI/Digital audio studio, the company offers some MIDI-only solutions like
MusicShop for sequencing and Overture for notation.
Summary
You’ll want to do basically three different things with audio on your Mac —
digitize it for editing, record in the MIDI language for creating music, and use
speech technology to talk to your Mac and have it talk back.
> You can use your Mac as a digital tape recording, taking thousands of audio
samples per second, and then stringing them together into an audio file. The
files are stored in various standard file formats, many of which are handled by
QuickTime on a Mac. The audio files can then be edited like any other
computer file, making it a simple matter to edit audio with no generational
loss.
^ MIDI works a different way — the Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a
computer language that enables Macs to communicate with music
synthesizers. With the right hardware and software, you can connect your
Mac to a synthesizer, record songs in music notation, edit them, and play
them back. Many instruments can be supported at once, allowing a Mac to
control an entire band or orchestra’s worth of sound.
4* The Mac OS has speech technology built into it so that your Mac can speak
the text it finds in word processors, dialog boxes and on the Web. You can
also speak to your Mac, enabling it to respond to your voice commands the
same way it might respond to mouse or keyboard directives.
> Although the expansion cards install the same way as any others, digital audio
and MIDI hardware and software vary greatly in what they look like, what they
do and how they do it. You can spend a few hundred bucks or thousands and
thousands to outfit the perfect computer music studio for your needs.
^ ^ ^
Printers and
Print Sharing
I t’s amazing how many Mac owners I’ve talked to who feel
their printing situation is good enough or adequate for
their needs. Not that I’m saying it isn’t necessarily true or that
the key to happiness is buying a new printer. But I do know a
lot of people who fool themselves into believing they’re happy
with their printers. The fact is many printers are too slow,
offer low quality, and can seriously affect your quality of
computing life. Sometimes it’s time to upgrade sooner than
you think.
That said, a printer decision is all about what you want to
accomplish. There are plenty of trade-offs, such as cost for
speed and speed for color. Knowing what you want out of your
printer is a very important first step to buying one.
You’ll also find there’s another important step and a dilemma
somewhat unique to Macintosh. You need to know what
printer description technology you plan to use for your
printing tasks. The two major choices — QuickDraw and
PostScript — are often dictated by the type of printer you
choose. (Inkjets are mostly QuickDraw-based, whereas most
lasers use PostScript.) That isn’t always the case, though, so
you’ll want to know what you’re getting into before you buy.
4 ^ ♦ 4
In This Chapter
QuickDraw versus
PostScript
Printer technologies
and types
Setting up your
printer
Printer sharing
Software for printing
4 ^ > > ♦
Mac Printer Technology
Two basic issues need to be addressed before you run out and
buy any printer, although a number of other factors will affect
your decision, too. The first is the actual, physical mechanism
used to create the image. The major types — inkjet, laser, and
the occasional dot-matrix printer — employ different
strategies for making text and images appear on the page.
370 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
You also must consider the software technology used. The Mac offers two general
ways to get a printer and Mac to talk to one another. The first method is QuickDraw,
the basic technology that’s also used to draw images on the screen. The other is
Adobe’s PostScript technology, a cross-platform printer description language that is
generally used for professional-level applications. Which option you choose
depends somewhat on who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish.
Printer issues
A huge part of being a printer (I say this for you Method actors out there) is getting
text and images on a piece of paper. Different printers set out to accomplish this in
various ways, resulting in a variety of speeds, color capabilities, print qualities, and
a few other factors.
For most printers, speed is measured in pages per minute (ppm). The faster the
page-per-minute rate, the faster a batch of printing gets done. Often, however, page-
per-minute ratings from manufacturers don’t take all factors that can affect speed
into consideration, such as how long it takes a printer to warm up, or how long it
takes for the printer to prepare each digital page for imaging. Printer speeds also
vary (with some printers) based on how much of a given page is covered by text
and images. If a high percentage of the page is to be covered, the page can take
longer than the average ppm number given by the manufacturer.
Another measure specific to printers is resolution, measured in dots per inch (dpi),
horizontally and vertically. The higher the resolution of a printer, the higher the
cost of the printer in most cases, although higher-resolution printers are certainly
becoming more affordable as the years pass. A resolution of 300x300, the norm for
the first ten years of the Mac’s existence, is the low end for inkjet and laser printers
these days. Instead, higher resolutions — 600x600, 720x720, or 1200x600 — are
becoming more popular, even for nonprofessional purposes.
The higher the resolution, the smaller each individual dot used to make up the
lettering or parts of an image in your document. The end result is that higher-
resolution printers can use all those extra dots to give the illusion of smoother
curves and cleaner lines. That means text and images begin to look more as though
they were professionally typeset (modern typesetters reach up to 5,000 dpi), and
less as though they were computer generated.
Along with dpi comes another fairly important statistic — lines per inch (Ipi). This
is the measurement used when printing halftone images — the fake grayscale images
that any black-and-white printer has to print to suggest the different shading in
various parts of the image. The more lines per inch, the better the grayscale
reproduction of photographic images. You’ll also find that the lines per inch
measure is closely related to the resolution for scanning images, as discussed in
Chapter 11.
Chapter 15 ♦ Printers and Print Sharing 371
Choosing a printer
When you go to purchase a new printer, you’ll stumble across a few other
interesting issues to consider. You might want to concern yourself with the type of
consumables, such as the type of ink and paper the printer uses. This depends on
the technology behind the printer (a laser printer uses imaging toner like a copier
does, whereas an inkjet printer uses ink), but that’s not always the whole story.
Some printers can use more expensive inks and toners. Others require special
paper for optimum results. Some can use a variety of different consumables to cut
down on costs.
You’ll also want to know what add-ons the printer is capable of accepting. Can it be
expanded with an Ethernet networking card? Can it be shared easily with a
workgroup of users? Does it offer expandable RAM or font-storage features? Can
you add a sheet feeder or an automatic envelope feeder?
You’ll find that different types of printers are more likely to offer these features than
others, but the high end of any printer segment should offer you a few extras. What
exactly you need depends on your circumstances and how much convenience and
efficiency you have to have from your printer. But first, you should understand the
software technology behind printing to help you make the right choice.
Printing money: Cost pet' page
If you've thought it'd be a good idea to buy an inkjet printer because they're so much
cheaper than laser printers, you may want to think again. Although you can certainly pay
quite a bit of money for a laser printer, the up-front price is often not the only dollar amount
you should concern yourself with. What may prove more important is your cost per page.
Everything about a laser printer seems more expensive. They are hundreds more dollars in
the store. They use toner cartridges and consumables that cost twice or three times as
much as inkjet cartridges. They have expensive add-ons and make you pay for things you
don't need, such as networking capabilities.
If you decide on an inkjet, it's certainly not a bad choice, especially for home users and for
Mac owners who need to proof their work in color (or print occasional color for home or
small business use). In most other cases, though, it's better to buy a laser printer.
First inkjet cartridges, at $20 to $30 a pop, seem cheaper than laser-printer toner cartridges —
until you factor in the number of pages each type of cartridge is capable of producing. With
inkjet cartridges, you'll average 500 to 1,000 pages of text and graphics. Toner cartridges are
often rated at 5,000 or so pages; the Apple LaserWriter 12/640, for instance, can print 6,000
average pages, according to Apple's literature. By comparison, the Epson Color Stylus 800
inkjet printer boasts a cartridge life of 960 pages.
(continued)
372 Part II 4 Periorming the Upgrade
(continued)
Consider the output cost of two theoretical printers. A Si 00 toner cartridge that prints 6,000
pages costs you $.02 per page. A $30 ink cartridge that prints 500 pages costs you $.06 per
page. That's a difference of $40 per every 1,000 pages you print. To think of it another way
you'd end up spending a total of $360 for ink cartridges to match the same output of one
$100 toner cartridge.
Good inkjet paper tends to be more expensive, too, with higher-strength bonds recom-
mended for holding the heavy inks. Some inkjet printers require special paper to achieve
high-resolution results. Watch carefully for this requirement when you're shopping for an
inkjet -don't get carried away by claims of 720 and 1440 dpi. They may require special
paper that can be rather expensive.
If you'll be printing text and black-and-white images quite often, especially in an office set-
ting, think twice before choosing the printer with the cheaper sticker price. If you plan to
keep it for a while, check the prices charged for the printer's consumables and make sure
you'll be getting a good deal over time.
Printer languages
Macintosh-based printers offer two major methods for getting text and images on
the page: QuickDraw and PostScript. QuickDraw is the Mac OS’s native way of doing
things, whereas PostScript is a cross-platform solution developed and controlled by
Adobe Systems. Both are adequate for most printing jobs, but PostScript is
certainly considered the more professional of the two, as it is the language spoken
by publishing, printing, and multimedia programs across a variety of computer
platforms and solutions.
PostScript
PostScript is most accurately characterized as a printer description language. It
provides a complete solution in many ways, from describing high-resolution
graphics to creating resizable fonts and even controlling a printer’s page breaks,
test pages, and other features. In a way, PostScript is the older stepbrother to
QuickDraw. Apple didn’t invent PostScript (Adobe Systems, Inc., did), but it
became a part of the Mac OS early on as the desktop-publishing revolution was
just getting underway.
PostScript printers are often laser printers, although inkjets, dye-sublimation, and
other printers (notably typesetters and digital-printing presses) can also be based
on the PostScript description language. PostScript must be processed by a CPU,
which is often built into the printer itself. Increasing its cost and sophistication.
PostScript requires printers to have their own RAM, own CPUs and, in some cases,
their own hard drives (usually for storing fonts). These printers can be great
performers, but PostScript is generally associated with a price premium over
QuickDraw printers.
chapter 15 4 Printers and Print Sharing 373
PostScript is pervasive; it’s a font technology, a printer control technology, and
a screen drawing technology — at least, for some OSes, such as NextStep and
OpenStep. (It isn’t clear that Display Postscript will be included in future Mac
OS versions.) NextStep, and OpenStep after it (both from Steve Jobs’ Next, Inc.),
actually used PostScript to describe screen images as well as fonts and printers,
resulting in amazing WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) capability and
reasonably inexpensive PostScript printers. (The lower cost was due to the Next
printers not actually having to process the PostScript data. Instead, they acted like
a QuickDraw printer on the Mac, simply receiving the raster file from the computer,
which did all the imaging itself.)
QuickDraw
QuickDraw already is the Mac OS’s screen description language, which would seem
to make it a natural for the Mac’s printing technology. It so happens, though, that
QuickDraw isn’t as robust as PostScript, as it was designed for the original Macs
that were black and white (not grayscale), low-resolution, and generally
unconcerned with the problems of modern publishing.
QuickDraw doesn’t describe fonts and it doesn’t control printers. Instead, the Mac
OS is responsible for enabling printer drivers to access the printers, usually
through the Chooser or similar options (like desktop printing) that printer
manufacturers can take advantage of.
Likewise, QuickDraw offers no particularly advanced font technologies — at least,
not natively. In Mac OS System 7.0 and above, Apple’s answer to PostScript fonts —
called TrueType and developed with Microsoft — very capably takes care of fonts,
both on the screen and on the page, resulting in great output for QuickDraw-based
printers. But early QuickDraw was limited to bitmapped fonts, which only work well
at a few particular point sizes.
QuickDraw (especially when combined with TrueType) is certainly adequate for
daily business and home printing tasks, and it’s cheap to implement. Instead of
dedicated languages and processors, your Mac is responsible for creating the
QuickTime image and, just as it draws your Mac’s screen, it “draws” the page to a
printer driver. The driver software makes sure the page is formatted correctly for
the printer, and then feeds the data to the printer.
You can probably see why QuickDraw printers are often cheaper than PostScript
printers: PostScript printers require more horsepower (a processor and lot of RAM)
to get things done. Many QuickDraw printers have no internal processors or RAM,
because they rely on the Mac OS to create the image, even if it slows your Mac
down a bit.
374 Part II > Periorming the Upgrade
Printer types
Although in one respect, Mac printers can fall into one of two camps — QuickDraw
or PostScript — they can also be categorized by the method they use to print text
and images on paper. Some of these methods are old standards; others are less
common, but perfectly acceptable, alternatives such as dye-sublimation, thermal
wax transfer, and even techniques designed specifically for printing photos.
More than likely you’ll pick something from the big two: laser or inkjet. And,
although cost per page is an important issue, you’ll also notice that the
technologies, in some ways, are converging. Inkjet printers aren’t as slow as they
once were, and laser printers can print in color. Additionally, other types of printers
offer an alternative to both that might fit more specialized needs.
Table 15-1 shows a number of manufacturers who make Mac-compatible printers
for individual Macs and workgroups.
Table 15-1
Mac-compatible Printer Manufacturers
Manufacturer
Type of Printers
Technology
Web Site
Apple
Laser, inkjet
QuickDraw,
PostScript
imaging.apple.com
Epson
Laser, inkjet
QuickDraw,
PostScript
www.epson.com
GCC Tech
Laser
PostScript
www.gcctech.com
Canon
inkjet
PostScript
www.canon.com
NEC
Laser
PostScript
www.nec.com
QMS
Laser, dye
sublimination
PostScript
www.qms.com
ALPS Electric
Dye sublimation
PostScript
www.alpsusa.com
Tektronix
inkjet, solid ink
PostScript
www.tektronix.com
Hewlett-Packard
Inkjet, laser
PostScript
www.hp.com
Laser printers
Sometimes called page printers, laser printers image an entire page internally
before printing it, making them take a little longer than most inkjets to get started
on a page. However, they move the page through more quickly once the process is
underway. That process also explains some of the cost difference between lasers
and inkjets. Page printers must have on-board processors and enough RAM to
image an entire page, as well as hold the fonts required for the page.
Chapter 15 > Printers and Print Sharing 375
Page printers don’t necessary have to use a laser, either. Some printers in the past
have used LEDs and LCDs to do the same thing a laser does: Charge particles on a
rolling drum to get them to pick up toner that’s transferred to paper. Otherwise,
these technologies are very much like that of the laser printer.
Laser printers offer a number of advantages over other printer types, at least for
black-and-white printing. Let’s look at some of them:
4 ^ Speed. Laser printers are generally faster than any other type, offering the
best speed for both individual and workgroup printing needs. Low-end laser
printers offer speeds of 4 to 6 ppm, whereas high-speed lasers can print at 20
ppm or more.
4 High-capacity. Laser printers offer bigger paper trays and longer-lasting
consumables for everyday printing. They’re good for networked workgroups
and situations where many people need access to the same printer.
4 Rexibility. Designed for office tasks, laser printers tend to offer the most
peripherals — RAM upgrades, envelope feeders, and larger bins for paper.
You can even find laser printers with copier-like qualities — sorters, staplers,
and such.
Laser printers really don’t offer many disadvantages over other printer types,
unless your needs are more specialized. Laser printers print in black and white
really well, but color laser printers are only just now becoming affordable for
corporate installations. Inkjets and other printers rule, even in creative offices,
where it’s important to create color proofs of documents destined for color
reproduction or full-fledged publishing. And, of course, there’s the biggest hurdle to
overcome: Laser printers tend to be a bit pricey in the beginning, especially
considering that most of them are based on PostScript, which carries the baggage
of a licensing fee from Adobe in addition to the requisite fonts, RAM, and processor.
In fact, laser printers tend to use quite a bit of RAM, considering they aren’t full-
fledged computers. Realize, though, that each pixel needs to be stored before the
printer can start to create the image; the inner workings move along faster than the
processor in most laser printers. This means the printer needs enough RAM to hold
all the pixel information for a printed page. Remember that it can take a few
megabytes of RAM to hold a screen image (as discussed in Chapter 12). Also note
that screen images are usually only 72 to 75 dpi. A 600x600 dpi printout on an 8!^”-
by-H” piece of paper requires about 33.6 million dots (not accounting for margins
and printer limitations). Assuming one bit per dot, it’d take about 4MB to store that
many dots before the printer can get started printing.
Not that a printer necessarily needs that much RAM. Many modern laser printers
use compression techniques to lower the amount of RAM required for storing a
page. This makes a lot of sense, especially considering that the average printed
page has only about 5 percent coverage of ink or toner. The rest of the white space
could be subjected very easily to a basic compression scheme. Table 15-2 shows
some typical RAM quantities for laser printers.
376 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Adding RAM to a printer can even speed it up a tad, especially if the printer is used to
print a lot of PostScript fonts. Just having that extra bit of RAM tends to get many trou-
bled workgroup printers up and running with fewer glitches and errors.
Table 15-2
Typical RAM Quantities in Laser Printers
Printer Specs
RAM
300x300
2MB (1MB compressed)
600x600
4MB
600x1200
8MB
1200x1200
12MB
Color 600x600
12-16MB
Workgroup 600x600
8-16MB
Now let’s turn to the matter of how la.ser printers translate the image in RAM to
something that can appear on paper. At the heart of a laser printer is the
photoconductor drum, which is designed to spin around while holding an electric
charge. The electric charge repels toner. The laser in a laser printer goes to work on
the drum, drawing a bitmap of the page line by line. Wherever the laser hits the
drum, it alters the charged state of the drum, so that those parts hit by the laser
now attract toner. The toner Is rolled onto the drum, which picks up toner where
appropriate, and then the image is rolled onto paper. The paper is sent through a
fusing roller, which heats the toner (formerly dry ink) and fuses it with the paper.
(This explains why paper is always a tad warm when it comes out of a laser printer
or a copier.)
The printer’s toner is kept in a second, removable cartridge that can be replaced
when the toner is depleted and the printer no longer prints reliably. Some earlier
laser printers featured toner and drum assemblies that were installed separately or
as kits, although more often today you simply change toner cartridges (see Figure
15-1). Printers do tend to have a limited lifespan, however, which can sometimes be
extended by replacing internals such as the photoconductor drum.
chapter 15 > Printers and Print Sharing 377
Figure 15-1 : The Personal LaserWriter 300 features a toner cartridge
that' s easily removed from the front of the printer.
For one-color printing, it’s possible to change the toner cartridge to a different
color ink, and then print. With two printing passes, you could also add spor co/or to
your documents: Printing the black parts of the page first, replace the black
cartridge with a color cartridge, and then refeed the page through the printer to
print the color sections. To achieve full-color results, though, a color laser printer
has to have four separate toner colors, each of which has to be rolled onto the
drum. Each color is drawn on the drum separately while the paper spins on a
special transfer drum, which rotates the page past the photoconductor drum four
times. Once all the color has been transferred, the page is output.
The result? At the time of writing, color laser printers still haven’t fallen to a
reasonable technology price point as often happens in computing, and they still
cost five to ten times as much as black-and-white laser printers. More
manufacturers are making color laser printers these days, though, which bodes
well for a less-expensive future for color printing.
378 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
My sometimes writing partner, Dave Johnson, tells a personal anecdote about a sprawling
laser-printer comparison article he did once for one of the larger Intel-compatible PC mag-
azines. With some ten printers shipped to his house, he tested and judged them against
one another. Then it came time to ship the printers to the photographers so that pictures of
the printers could be included with the article.
"Remove the toner cartridge from a laser printer before shipping," Dave wisely offers. His
information was garnered directly from personal experience.
It seems that two of the printers arrived at the photographer's studio "toner bombed" —
covered in the black, staining soot of printer toner. Ruined, at least for the purposes of the
photo shoot, they had to be returned to the vendors. (One of the two vendors decided the
printer was a total write-off and didn't even bother to try to clean and fix it.)
To ship toner, first remove it from the printer, and then package it in its original shipping
materials or a close facsimile. If you don't, you could risk ruining the entire printer.
Inkjet printers
While we're all waiting for the price of color laser printers to come clown, inkjet
printers are an inexpensive way to print both color and black-and-white documents.
Inkjet printers use tiny nozzles to spray wet ink onto the page as the printer pulls
the paper along a paper path. The nozzles use a number of different proprietary
technologies (such as Canon's BubbleJet technology) to bring the ink out of its
storage well in exactly the correct quantities and in the right places. The nozzles
and printhead work very quickly, though, resulting in speeds that vary from a
typical 1 or 2 ppm all the way to 8 ppm and more on some very high-end inkjets.
The ink is held in special ink cartridges, or reservoirs, designed to force the ink
to flow smoothly without air bubbles and other elements that could clog the
nozzles, which are also part of the cartridge. The ink also needs to be a fairly
special composition that dries quickly enough to keep from streaming down the
page (a problem called wicking) or to otherwise streak as the print head moves
quickly along. The spacing of the nozzles is an exact science, and it’s that precision
that enables the print head to move quickly along the page while maintaining a
resolution of between 300 and 720 dpi in both horizontal and vertical directions,
making the output of many inkjet printers competitive with that of standard laser
Although inkjet cartridge refill packages are popular ways to cut down on inkjet costs,
it's important to note that, as stated above, the printer nozzles are replaced every
time an old cartridge is replaced by a new one because they're built into the car-
tridge. When inkjet cartridges are refilled by hand, these nozzles aren't replaced,
which can result in degraded quality over time.
printers.
Chapter 1 5 4 - Printers and Print Sharing 379
Because inkjets use wet ink for printing (as opposed to a laser printer’s dry toner),
it’s easier to build inkjets that can work with color. By mixing three or four colors
together (usually the CMYK colors — cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), inkjet
printers are capable of printing in full color with only minor technical tweaks; most
of the color printing is actually done in software updates, not hardware changes.
This results in color-proofing solutions that remain inexpensive because they still
rely on QuickDraw and the Mac OS for most rendering tasks.
In fact, most inkjets printers are QuickDraw-based, and most of them do not have
internal processors or RAM. Unlike laser printers, most inkjets printers do not
render an entire page in the RAM that’s installed in the printer itself; instead, the
page is rendered by the Mac OS, and then transferred to the printer when it can
handle the data. (Instead of megabytes of RAM, QuickDraw printers tend to have
only a few kilobytes to serve as a buffer while parts of a page are printing.) When
using an inkjet printer, you may notice that it can take some time for a printing task
to relinquish control of your Mac, or the Mac runs a tad slower as the document
prints in the background. This is because the Mac OS is performing the page
description for the printer, instead of simply transferring data to it.
Color proofing printers
Some other printers are less common for office and home tasks, but worth the
consideration nonetheless. Focusing on high-color output and proofing, both dye-
sublimation and solid-ink printers offer slightly more expensive output and, usually,
incredible results. Once only the domain of graphics professionals, both solid-ink
and dye-sublimation techniques may be making comebacks as more practical
alternatives to the more common printer types.
With dye sublimation, the printer melts ink from a ribbon onto special paper. The
color is defused into the paper, and other colors can be melted directly on top of
the first colors. This creates a continuous color image that mimics a photograph.
In fact, one of the more popular uses of dye-sublimation printers is to create
photographs — that is, to print images captured using digital photographs.
Solid-ink printers use dyed wax — sticks not completely unlike a child’s crayons —
that is melted into a glossy ink and then transferred to the page. The result is a very
bright color image that doesn’t necessarily require a special type of paper. These
printers also tend to be very expensive, although a reasonable cost per page can
make them useful for color-printing professionals and offices that need high-quality
color proofing.
Dot-matrix printers
Once the prevailing printer technology, dot matrix now plays a bit role in the world
of printing. Although dot-matrix printers are cheap and offer a very low cost per
page, they also offer output quality that is considered inadequate for nearly any but
the most informal of documents. With the low cost of getting a higher-quality inkjet
printer, few folks opt for dot matrix these days (and you’ll be hard pressed to find
one new for Macs).
380 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
There’s one good reason to keep a dot-matrix printer around. Dot-matrix printers
form letters and other printed characters by forcing small pins (usually 9 or 24 of
them) to strike a ribbon and create a character. Doing this very quickly, the printers
are capable of a number of lines per second, resulting in perhaps a page per minute
or so. What’s operative, though, is the striking part. The pins actually physically hit
the ribbon and the page to create their mark, making dot-matrix printers useful for
printing on multipart, carbon-copy-based forms, such as purchase orders. Laser
printers and inkjet printers can’t help you in this department.
Specialty printers
A final category catches any other printers that slip through the cracks, especially
those designed for a specific purpose, such as printing receipts for point-of-sale
computers or printing shipping labels. Often such printers use a low-end inkjet
technology, connect directly to your Mac, and have specialized application
programs responsible for printing correctly to them. If you happen upon one, you’ll
have to decide on your own if it’s a worthy purchase. Just be aware it might need to
use the same port you’ve already dedicated to another, more traditional printer.
Installing Printers
Printers hook up to Macs in a few different ways. The most obvious connection —
the printer port — can actually qualify as either a LocalTalk connection or a serial
connection, depending on the printer. A laser printer that has its own processor
and RAM, for instance, will almost always be connected to your Mac’s printer port
over a LocalTalk connection using a LocalTalk cable. This has its advantages,
including making it a simple matter to add the printer to your entire workgroup
without any special settings on the host Mac (assuming you use PhoneNet or a
similar LocalTalk cabling scheme for your entire network, or you’re using a software
or hardware LocalTalk bridge — see Chapter 17).
However, there are other ways to connect printers. Here’s the rundown:
4 Printer port. Using either a LocalTalk cabling solution or an Imagewriter
(standard serial) cable, printers can be attached directly to the printer port
on a Mac. (QuickDraw printers can also be attached to the modem port, if
necessary, although you can’t use LocalTalk on the modem port.)
4 Ethernet. Many PostScript printers designed for workgroups — or primarily
designed to work with Microsoft Windows — offer a connection over Ethernet
that enables Macs and Intel-compatible PCs to talk to the printer over a local
network.
4 SCSI. Some high-end color printers rely on SCSI instead of a slower
serial/LocalTalk connection. SCSI printers tend to be a bit pricey, but are
much quicker than equivalent serial-port printers.
chapter 15 -f Printers and Print Sharing 381
Cabling
How a printer is installed can be traced directly to the printer language —
PostScript or QuickDraw — that the printer uses. A QuickDraw printer doesn’t
have a processor, so it relies directly on a Mac to create the bitmapped image that’s
ultimately printed. This means the printer is unlikely to be connected to the Mac
by anything other than a serial connection, because it’s not capable of receiving
printer commands directly.
When installing any printer, check the manual and packaging carefully for any indica-
tion of shipping ties or stops that have been installed on the printer to keep it from
moving in transit.
To hook up a QuickDraw printer to your Mac, follow these steps:
1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Plug the serial cable into the printer, and then plug the cable into the printer
port on your Mac.
3. Restart your Mac.
A PostScript printer, on the other hand, has its own RAM and processor. That
makes it a computer. In almost all cases, PostScript printers are actually connected
to Macs as if over a network, even if there’s only one Mac to connect to. Instead of
using the printer port for a serial connection, a LocalTalk printer will use the port
for a LocalTalk connection. This means any additional computers should also be
able to access the printer with no problems. If an Ethernet connection is desired,
it’s just as easy to hook up.
If you want to hook up a LocalTalk printer, follow these steps:
1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Plug the LocalTalk cable into your Mac’s printer port. If you’ll be using the
printer on a workgroup network, connect it to a PhoneNet adapter (or a
similar transceiver), and then connect the transceiver to the network.
3. Restart the Mac.
An Ethernet connection may require a special card for the printer. If such a card is
already installed, you should be able to plug the network cabling into the Ethernet
port on your printer, and then plug the other end of the cable into your network’s
Ethernet hub.
382 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Some printers may require a special Ethernet transceiver. If you're using a 10Base2
(BNC, coax) cabling system, you may be able to daisy chain your printer to other
Macs in the network instead of using an Ethernet hub.
If your printer offers a SCSI connector, check the manual for information on setting
its SCSI ID number. Next, install the printer as you might any other SCSI device like a
hard drive, Zip, or scanner. Find an available SCSI ID, shut down your Mac, and the
printer to the daisy chain of peripherals. If it’s the last device on the SCSI chain, add
a SCSI terminator to the printer if it doesn’t offer active or internal termination.
Driver software
Once you have your Mac turned back on, you should run any software included
with the printer; this action installs the driver software that enables your Mac
and printer to communicate. For LocalTalk printers, this will usually involve a
completely new software driver that’s placed in the Extensions folder in your
Mac’s System Folder. After the installer program is done and you’ve restarted your
Mac, you can turn the printer on and bring up the Mac’s Chooser. You’ll then have
a new option in the Chooser through which you set up the installed printer (see
Figure 15-2).
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Figure 15-2: Choosing a printer driver in the Chooser
Click the printer driver’s icon on the left-hand side of the Chooser and notice that
the options on the right-hand side change to reflect the possible connections you
can make to this printer. If you’re using a LocalTalk or Ethernet connection, you
should have AppleTalk turned on; if you’re using a QuickDraw printer over the
printer port, you’ll need to turn AppleTalk off. (If you’re using the modem port to
talk to the printer, you can leave AppleTalk on.) Now choose the connection that
you’d like to use for printing by clicking that connection’s icon. Once you’ve done
this, click the window’s close box to put the change into effect.
chapter 15 ^ Printers and Print Sharing 383
If you’re dealing with a PostScript printer, the process may be similar — running the
installation software, restarting, and checking the Chooser for your printer driver.
You may also find, however, that your PostScript printer doesn’t have a driver. Like
Apple-compatible laser printers, it may use the standard LaserWriter driver instead:
1. In the Chooser, select the LaserWriter driver. Any printers currently
connected to your network are available in the right-hand side of the window.
2. If your printer shows up, choose it and click Create. 0^ your printer doesn’t
appear, make sure it’s properly connected, AppleTalk is active, and the printer
is turned on.)
3. Choose Auto Setup if possible. Otherwise, you may be forced to choose a
PostScript Printer Description file. If you don’t see your printer, use the dialog
box to locate the appropriate PPD for your printer — it may be on a floppy
disk or CD-ROM included with the printer.
4. You can then use the other LaserWriter options (Get Info, Configure, and so on)
to alter the printer description if necessary. When you’re done, choose OK.
5. Now, click the Chooser’s close box to set your changes into motion. The
Chooser will warn you that the printer has changed and that you need to
choose Page Setup from any open applications. That’s the first sign things are
going well.
If you’ve got the printer set up and the driver activated, try printing. You should get
instant feedback letting you know if your printer is humming along successfully or if
you’re running into trouble. With many printers, you can check the Print Monitor
(in the Applications menu) for status on currently printing jobs, or double-click the
desktop printer icon to get more info on the printer’s status (see Figure 15-3).
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Figure 15-3: In Mac OS 7.6 and higher, choosing
a new Apple-made or LaserWriter 8-based printer
driver generally results in a new desktop printer
icon. Double-click the icon for printing status or drag-
and-drop files on the icon to print them.
384 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Mac expert tips: LaserWriters, old and new
Looking for a used laser printer, trying to administer your new printer, or trying to get a non-
Apple printer to fit in at the Club Macintosh? Mike Kent, system administrator and Mac
author, has a few hints for you:
"For LaserWriters, administration is pretty simple. The Apple Printer Utility (included with
your printer or available at Apple's Support Web site at www.dpple.com/support) will
make most of the adjustments needed, including turning off that wasted test page at boot
up, or turning it on to see how many pages have been printed.
"Beyond that, be sure your Printer Descriptions folder in the Extensions folder contains
descriptive files for your LaserWriter. This is the folder that the Setup button in the Chooser
consults when setting up your printer. If you have a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet, for example,
put the description files that came with that printer in the Printer Descriptions folder so out-
put can be adjusted properly. You can save disk space by trashing all other files in the
Printer Descriptions folder if you don't have those printers. Similarly, you can use the
Extensions Manager to turn off printer drivers you don't need and thus keep them from
appearing in the Chooser.
"If you're looking for a cheap printer for home use, a number of older LaserWriters are turn-
ing up in garage sales and the like. Often they are sold without the setup disks or they may
have unusual settings, so Apple's Support Web site can be an invaluable resource. The
Personal LaserWriter NT, for example, has a SCSI-like dial on the back that has nothing to do
with SCSI, and a check of Apple's Tech Notes shows that the dial is instead used to set the
type of network input, with '1' corresponding to AppleTalk."
You can even input the name of the printer and search just the subject lines of articles in
the Tech Info Library (http: / /ti 1 . i nfo. appl e .com/) to get all articles related to your
new, used printer.
Printer sharing
You may have noticed from the descriptions that only PostScript printers tend to
set themselves up on the network using LocalTalk or Ethernet, thereby giving
everyone in the workgroup access to the printer. But what if you got a great deal on
a QuickDraw printer? Many of them can be shared, too, using Apple’s Printer Share
technology.
Apple’s Printer Share basically enables other computers on your network to print
to the printer as if they were accessing it from your computer. Their Mac turns the
pages into bitmaps, prepares them for printing, and then sends the pages to your
Mac, which manages them using the Printer Share software. As the pages arrive on
your Mac, Printer Share passes them to the printer driver, which outputs them to
the printer.
chapter 15 ^ Printers and Print Sharing 385
On Macs that use Mac OS 7.6 and above, Printer Share is built right into the
Chooser (assuming it’s installed in the Extensions folder):
1. Open the Chooser and select the QuickDraw printer.
2. On the right-hand side of the Chooser window, click the Setup button.
3. The Printer Share dialog box appears (on printers capable of printer sharing).
Select the Share This Printer check box to activate printer sharing. You can
enter a password to limit usage of the printer, as well as checking the Keep a
Log check box to keep a log file of printer jobs completed by the printer.
4. Click OK when you’re done configuring Printer Share.
5. Click the close box in the Chooser to effect the new settings.
Now other Macs on your network should be able to see the printer, even if they’re
not specifically logged into your computer. Likewise, they should be able to choose
the printer in their own Chooser, just as if it were a QuickDraw printer connected to
their system. The only major difference will be that the printer will appear on the
list as a printer name and network icon instead of a printer or modem port icon
(see Figure 15-4).
Figure 15-4: My QuickDraw-based Personal
LaserWriter, as seen from another Mac on the
network. Notice the printer is named ("Fritz") and it
has a network icon next to it.
Not all third-party QuickDraw printers support Printer Share, although some of them
do. In cases where they don't, check to see if a networking-related printer driver is
included with the printer. HP inkjets, for instance, often include a special AppleTalk
version of the driver that will enable you to hook up an inkjet using LocalTalk cabling
and then print to it over the network.
386 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Printer Add-Ons and Software
A number of different utilities and software add-ons will enable you to do more with
your current printer, or, in some cases, give you access to a new printer you might
not have been able to use. Software can also be added, in many cases, to enhance
your printer’s printing capabilities.
Accessories
Printer hardware accessories are usually designed to increase the capabilities of
the printer. You can add another tray for holding a different type of paper to many
workgroup laser printers, for instance. A few common add-ons include the
following:
> Paper handling. Paper trays, special feeders for envelopes, add-ons for
printing to transparencies.
•f Duplex printing. Special hardware add-ons designed to enable printing to
both sides of a piece of paper.
> Networking options. Add an Ethernet card or a LocalTalk adapter to a printer
to allow network printing.
^ RAM upgrades. Add more RAM to support more complex pages or more fonts
for printing. This is a good idea if you get frequent errors telling you that the
printer can’t handle the entire page you’re sending.
^ SCSI hard drive. Some fairly advanced workgroup printers have options for
adding a dedicated hard drive to the printer for storing fonts and/or
bitmapped pages for printing.
These add-ons are oftentimes proprietary in nature, meaning you’ll need to consult
the manufacturer to find out how you can add paper handling, duplex printing, and
networking options. If your printer can handle a SCSI hard drive, you shouldn’t
have too much trouble installing it using hints from Chapter 7; the only main
difference is you probably won’t have a choice of SCSI IDs (check your manual), and
you won’t have much reason or opportunity to daisy chain devices to the printer
(which wouldn’t be useful anyway).
To add RAM, you’ll want to consult the printer’s documentation and shop around
for RAM designed specifically for your printer. Apple, for instance, has used a
number of different types of RAM modules for upgrading their laser printer over the
years, including 30-pin modules, 72-pin modules, and special cards. Table 15-3
shows some of the memory options for Apple laser printers.
chapter 15 ♦ Printers and Print Sharing 387
Table 15-3
Apple LaserWriter Memory
Printer
Min.
RAM
Max.
RAM
Slots
RAM
Type
RAM
Speed
Sizes
LaserWriter
1.5MB
1.5MB
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
LaserWriter Plus
1.5MB
1.5MB
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
LaserWriter lISC
1MB
1MB
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
LaserWriter II NT
2MB
2MB
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
LaserWriter UNIX
2MB
12MB
12
64-pin
120 ns
256K, 1MB
LaserWriter Ilf
2MB
32MB
8
30-pin
80 ns
256K,
1MB, 4MB
LaserWriter ilg
5MB
32MB
8
30-pin
80 ns
256K,
1MB, 4MB
LaserWriter 8500
16MB
48MB
1
72-pin
80 ns
8MB, 16MB,
32MB
LaserWriter
Pro 600
8MB
32MB
2
72-pin
80 ns
4MB, 8MB,
16MB
LaserWriter Pro 630
SMB
32MB
2
72-pin
80 ns
4MB, 8MB,
16MB
LaserWriter
Pro 810
8MB
32MB
3
Module
N/A
4MB, 8MB
LaserWriter
4/600PS
2MB
6MB
1
Card
N/A
2MB, 6MB
LaserWriter
16/600PS
8MB
32MB
2
72-pin
80 ns
4MB, 8MB,
16MB
LaserWriter
Select 300
0.5MB
4.5MB
1
30-pin
80 ns
1MB, 4MB
LaserWriter
Select 300
1.5MB
5.5MB
1
72-pin
100 ns
1MB, 4MB
LaserWriter
Select 360
7MB
16MB
1
72-pin
80 ns
4MB,
16MB
Personal
LaserWriter SC
1MB
1MB
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Personal
LaserWriter LS
512K
1MB
4
30-pin
100 ns
256K
(continued)
388 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Table 15-3 (continued)
Printer
Min.
RAM
Max.
RAM
Slots
RAM
Type
RAM
Speed
Sizes
Personal
LaserWriter NT
2MB
8MB
2
30-pin
120 ns
1MB, 4MB
Personal
LaserWriter NTR
3MB
4MB
1
72-pin
80 ns
1MB
Personal
LaserWriter 300
512K
512K
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Personal
LaserWriter 320
2MB
SMB
1
card
N/A
2MB, 6MB
Color LaserWriter
12/600PS
12MB
40MB
2
72-pin
60 ns
1MB, 4MB,
16MB
Color LaserWriter
12/660PS
16MB
40MB
2
72-pin
60 ns
1MB, 4MB,
16MB
The Apple Spec Database, included on the CD-ROM, is great for getting information such
as which type of RAM your Apple printer uses and how much you can upgrade.
It’s certainly possible that you’ll find a need to upgrade RAM. Over the years, more
than a few laser printers have been sold with too little RAM — this occurred more
often back when RAM was incredibly expensive. The RAM would be adequate, say,
for printing a single-spaced text document with little or no graphics. Beyond that,
the printer was overloaded. If you find yourself in a similar situation, add some
RAM and consult Chapter 26 for information on troubleshooting printers.
Software
To improve your printing experience, aside from some basic advice (such as keep
your printer drivers up-to-date by checking the manufacturer’s Web site
occasionally) there’s other software you can add that’ll often do the trick. This
includes newer versions of the Mac OS; for instance, Mac OS 7.6 and up include
features like desktop printing, built-in Printer Share for many QuickDraw printers,
and a better functioning Chooser. If you’ve got a PostScript
LaserWriter-compatible, you’ll likely want to stay on top of the upgrades to the
LaserWriter driver; Apple continuously improves the reliability and features of that
driver.
Chapter 15 -f Printers and Print Sharing 389
You might want to look into some other special software options. Adobe Type
Manager (ATM) is an important addition for both PostScript and QuickDraw users.
Included for free with the Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer (found on the CD-ROM that
accompanies this book), ATM causes PostScript fonts to look smoother on your Mac's
screen and on QuickDraw printers. This allows you to view PostScript fonts the way
they'll appear on the page if you're printing to a PostScript printer. It also makes
PostScript fonts behave when printed to a QuickDraw printer, resulting in better
results and fewer jaggies.
Another software option is StyleScript, a printing utility from Infowave
(wv;w . infowave . com). This extension grabs print jobs before they reach the printer
and implements PostScript in software, using your Mac’s processor instead of a
standard PostScript printer’s processor. The result is PostScript-like output from a
QuickDraw printer. The only price is the cost of the box and the time you have to
wait for PowerPrint to let you have your Mac back after processing all those
PostScript codes.
PC printers
Envy the myriad choices available to PC users for printing? Infowave — the
StyleScript people — have a few hardware options to help solve that dilemma. The
PowerPrint (see Figure 15-5) is a parallel-to-LocalTalk adapter that enables you to
print from a Mac directly to an Intel-compatible PC printer. To do this, it has to offer
certain software drivers (specifically to translate QuickDraw commands into PCL —
Printer Control Language, the Intel-compatible PC standard originally created by
Hewlett-Packard). Fortunately, it includes drivers for all sorts of printers, including
various models from Brother, Canon, Epson, H-P, Okidata, Panasonic, and Ricoh.
Figure 15-5: The PowerPrint is a small box with software drivers
that make printing to PC printers possible (www.infowave.net/).
390 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
The PowerPrint is such a good idea, in fact, that Apple has recently announced
partnerships with Infowave and other printer manufacturers — Hewlett-Packard
and Lexmark, for example — to bring more options to the Mac platform through
the PowerPrint interface. This may prove to be an important development as Apple
continues moving away from the printer business to focus on computing solutions;
at the same time, a transition to USB may also require help from companies like
Infowave.
A PowerPrint Pro version makes PC printers available on a Mac network and a
PowerPlot interface device lets Macs print directly to Encad and Hewlett-Packard
brand large-format plotters and printers.
Similar devices and software are available from the PhotoScript Group
(WWW. photoscn' pt.com), a company that specializes in hardware raster image
processor (RIP) solutions that add PostScript capabilities to non-PostScript
printers. These solutions act as the processing engine for creating PostScript
output that can enhance the text and images printed to a QuickDraw printer, much
the way StyleScript and PowerPrint do.
The major difference with PhotoScript is the extent to which their equipment is
capable of doing this. PhotoScript actually off-loads the PostScript raster work to
another computer, this one with a processor specifically designed for the task of
creating the PostScript image. One obvious advantage is speed. Another is that the
RIP can connect to the printer over LocalTalk or Ethernet and then output using
SCSI or a standard parallel connection, thus obviating the need for a Mac-to-PC
printer solution. The main disadvantage is price.
PhotoScript offers software-only versions as well, which enable you to use the RIP
on your own Mac. Coupled with a LocalTalk-to-parailel adapter, you can get that
same great PostScript-like output with a less hefty price tag.
Summary
♦ All printers have a few things in common: Their speed is measured in pages
per minute, and their quality is measured in dots per inch. Lines per inch, an
oft-overlooked statistic, is an important parameter to know in regard to your
printer as well.
4 Two printer languages are common in the Mac world: PostScript and
QuickDraw. QuickDraw is the Mac’s standard way of getting text and images
on a page, as it simply uses built-in QuickDraw routines to “draw” a page onto
paper. This process is handled completely by your Mac, so the printer doesn’t
need any special features. For PostScript, on the other hand, the printer needs
RAM, its own processor, and (sometimes) a hard drive. PostScript is Adobe’s
printer description language, popular because it results in professional-
quality output and works cross-platform.
Chapter 15 4 Printers and Print Sharing 391
♦ Aside from the printer languages used, there are other technical
differentiators for printers, especially the way they print. Laser printers fuse
toner to the page, inkjet printers drop ink on the paper, dye-sublimation
printers melt ink from a ribbon onto the page, and solid-ink printers melt
crayon-like wax melted onto the page. The venerable dot-matrix printer
actually strikes a ribbon with small pins, much like a typewriter.
♦ Once you’ve got the printer, you may have a number of different options for
connecting it. Printers are connected to Macs over networks (LocalTalk and
Ethernet), directly over serial ports, and, occasionally, via a SCSI connection.
You then need to work a little magic in the Mac’s Chooser to get the Mac and
printer to communicate.
4 With your printer up and running, you may find that your printer needs to
accessorize a bit to make it more presentable. Many laser and workgroup
printers can accept add-ons like network cards, RAM, sheet feeders, and
envelope trays. You can also add software and hardware to print PostScript-
like output to QuickDraw printers or print from your Mac to Intel-compatible
PC printers.
4 4 4
Modems and
Internet Access
M odems are a big part of the infrastructure of the
Internet and a huge contributor to the sense of
community that permeates the Mac world. Mac owners tend
to be more connected than other computer users, with a
larger percentage of Mac owners heading out on the Internet
than the marketplace would seem to dictate. (Whereas Macs
make up 7 to 10 percent of all computers, studies show they
make up about 25 percent of Internet users.)
If you’re not already connected, you’ve got to get on the
Internet. And if you are connected, you probably want to go
faster. You’ll need to get some better equipment or take better
advantage of the technology built into your Mac. Fortunately,
these things aren’t tough. Access to the online world can do
amazing things for your Mac. Sure, you can waste time online.
But at the same time, there’s so much you can do, see, and
learn, even if you don’t have the world’s most powerful Mac.
On the Internet, chat and video conferencing provide instant
communications, and e-mail is at your disposal for rapid
communications; Usenet newsgroups are full of people who
share your interests and goals; mailing lists enable you to
participate in discussions on thousands of topics; FTP lets you
download tons of files for your Mac. The World Wide Web is a
mixture of all these things. (This book, for instance, would be
nearly impossible to complete without the reference points,
company information Web sites, and communications made
possible by the Internet.) To get started, though, you’ve got to
have access.
The majority of folks get their access one of two ways: either
with a direct connection to the Internet over an Ethernet
network, or via a modem of some kind. For home access,
modems remain the most likely way you’ll get service,
although folks in large metropolitan areas are starting to have
A P
In This Chapter
Modems and dala
transfer technologies
Choosing a modem
Installing a modem
ISDN, xDSL, and
high-speed cable
Internet access
Configuring Internet
software
^ ^ ^ ^
394 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
other options. For the most part, though, if you want access and your company,
school, apartment building, office park, or organization doesn’t offer it, you’ll need
a modem. I’ll talk about how to choose a modem, how to install it, and how to get
your Mac online in this chapter.
Part of what I mean by "Mac community" is played out in the book itself. In the early
and middle stages of writing, I sent messages to the Evangelist, an Apple-sponsored
mailing list that reaches tens of thousands of subscribers a day, most of whom are
self-described Mac Evangelists, people interested in promoting the Mac and helping
others find solutions that enable them to use Macs in their homes, offices, or schools.
I asked these Mac Evangelists to submit personal anecdotes that related to upgrading
and repairing Macs, and many of them eagerly obliged. Their stories, advice, and
warnings appear in sidebars throughout the text. (Check the Preface for more info on
this mailing list.)
How Modems Work
The word modem is really an acronym for modulate/demodulate, which describes
what a standard modem does to send data over regular telephone lines. Because
the telephone system is designed (in most cases) to transmit analog signals (sound
waves), the modem’s digital signals don’t do it much good. So, modems change
digital data into analog data (actually, audible tones) that can be transmitted over
the phone lines, received by another modem, and translated back into digital form
for use by the receiving computer.
In actual usage, the term modem gets tossed about a bit more than it should. Most
people think of modems not as modulators/demodulators, but as little boxes that
give them access to online services and the Internet. For instance, the terms ISDN
modem and cable modem are inaccurate, as both of these types of connections are
completely digital — no modulating or demodulating needs to happen. Although I
talk about these sorts of so-called modems later in this chapter, be aware that the
term only applies loosely.
In fact, cable and ISDN connections actually require terminal adapter (TA) devices,
because both are networking technologies. The latter, ISDN, connects to the phone
company’s digital network, and the other, cable, connects to the cable company’s
digital network. Unfortunately, TA isn’t nearly as cool a marketing term as modem.
I’d guess.
You may choose to believe that the word modem is a neologism (a made-up word),
not a true acronym, because it uses more than the first letter of each word that it
stands for. That's your prerogative, but don't write me to complain about it. Webster's
Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary supports my usage, so I'll call modem and codec
acronyms to my dying day!
chapter 16 4 - Modems and Internet Access 3d5
Modem types
Modems for Macs are generally either internal expansion cards or external boxes
connected to the Mac via a serial port (usually the modem port — the one with a
telephone icon next to it). External modems are much more common for Macs than
internal ones, with the exception of the PowerBook and Performa lines and the
iMac, all of which often sport internal modems. Although both NuBus and PCI
modems are relatively uncommon, modems have been made in the past for the
communications slot featured in many Mac models (see Figure 16-1).
There's another type of modem -one that's created entirely in software. When you
use a GeoPort adapter pod or expansion card, the PowerPC processor (or the special
digital signal processor in an AV Macintosh) to which the adapter is connected is
actually the modem. The adapter is just there to enable the software modem to com-
municate over phone lines.
Figure 16-1: An internal modem pulled from a Performa's
communications slot
Modems use a typical modular (RJ-1 1) phone jack to connect to a standard phone
line. Most modems also offer a pass-through connector that will allow you to install
a standard telephone by plugging the phone’s line directly into the modem.
External modems often use special serial cables, called hardware handshake cables,
to connect to the Mac’s modem port. In most cases, this cable is either
permanently attached to the modem, or it’s connected to the modem by a special
25-pin plug on one end and an 8-pin serial connector for the Mac on the other end.
396 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
With many Mac modems, the power supply is an important component. Certain
models of Global Village modems (a popular manufacturer of Mac-compatible
modems) won’t work with other power adapters, for instance. Other modems must
be plugged into the Mac’s ADB port to receive power, and consequently offer a
pass-through connector for mice, keyboards, and other devices.
Cross- % Read the discussion on ADB in Chapter 10 before opting for a modem that requires
e erenc^ possible that the addition of such a modem will overwhelm
your ADB connections if you already have three or more devices attached.
Modem speed
As mentioned, regular analog modems change digital signals into analog signals. To
do this, modem manufacturers have to agree to adhere to certain standards, most
of which are set up and controlled by the International Telecommunications Union
(ITU). These standards define the characteristics of communications that allow
modems to connect at various speeds, usually given in bits per second (bps). Often
a modem is referred to by its speed, for example, a 28.8 or 33.6 modem. These are
standard modem speeds (in kilobits per second) governed by the ITU standards.
The earliest modem speeds were measured in baud rate — the number of signaling
elements, or electrical changes, that occur in a second. This is different from the
bps rates now used, because faster modems are able to communicate more and
more bits per baud. A 300-baud modem, for instance, transferred 1 bit per baud, so
Its transfer rate was 300 bps. A 1,200 bps modem, might well have a baud rate of
600, but be capable of transmitting 2 bits per baud. The same with a 9,600 bps
modem — it probably actually operates at 2,400 baud, but it can send 4 bits per
baud, netting performance of 9,600 bits per second.
The bottom line: Avoid saying “baud” when you mean “bps.” These days, the
common measurement of modems is always bps or, even more likely, kilobits per
second (Kbps). Table 16-1 shows you the common modem bps rates and their
associated standards. Note that I’ve indicated in quotes how the standards are
usually referred to in casual shorthand. (For instance, “thirty-three dot six” and
“thirty-three six” are common ways to say “33.6” in conversation.)
Note that bis is a French word that can be translated as "second" or "revision" in this
context. In many cases, the bis refers to an update of the original standard that pro-
vides faster transmission rates (or some other feature, such as better compression).
chapter 16 4^ Modems and Internet Access 397
Table 16-1
BPS Rates and Modem Standards
Standard
Bit Rate
Notes
Bell 103
300 bps
US standard only; "300 baud"
CCITTV.21
300 bps
Bell 212A
1,200 bps
US standard only; "1200 bps"
ITU V.22
1,200 bps
ITU V.22bis
2,400 bps
ITU V.29
9,600 bps
ITU V.32
9,600 bps
ITU V.32bis
14,400 bps
"14.4"
USR V.terbo
19,200 bps
Proprietary US Robotics standard; "19.2"
ITU V.34
28,800 bps
"28.8"
ITU V.34bis
33,600 bps
"33.6"
USR X2
56,600 bps
Proprietary US Robotics standard
56KFlex
56,600 bps
Proprietary Rockwell standard
ITU V.90
56,600 bps
"56K"
To confuse things even further, a few different measurements of online speed are
common, especially when you’re downloading files — transferring data to your
computer from a remote computer. In older programs for downloading, the speed
might be measured in characters per second, which translates (roughly) into bytes
per second.
These days, many programs will show you the kilobytes per second at which you’re
receiving a transmission over the Internet and online services. You’ll probably
notice that this number doesn’t seem to bear much resemblance to your modem’s
stated speed. In fact, you’ll almost never see speeds as fast as you might think they
should be. That’s because various factors influence the speed of your modem, such
as the quality of your phone connection, the speed of your Internet provider’s
computers, traffic on the Internet, the speed of the remote computer, and so on.
Ideally, you should get bytes-per-second rates that are exactly one-eighth of the bps
rate of your modem (for example, 4,200 bytes per second for a 33.6 Kbps
connection). With the parity bits and checksums used for error correction and
modem negotiation, a more realistic ideal is a 1:10 ratio. But even that sort of
throughput rarely happens under real-world conditions.
398 Part II 4' Performing the Upgrade
Compression and correction
Other factors also ultimately dictate the speed at which your modem is
communicating. If you have a modem that transmits at a bit rate greater than 9,600
bps, for instance, it probably has additional modem protocols helping it along — in
particular, error-correction and data-compression protocols.
Because a modem transmits audible signals (and, if you have any experience with a
telephone, you know that a telephone line can add strange noises of its own), it’s
important for high-speed protocols to use a special scheme for ensuring that
interference and noise aren’t generating random errors in the data being sent. At
very low rates, this can be easily accomplished with a parity bit, which is sent with
the other bits in each character to make sure they arrive intact. A parity bit would
be sent along with the other seven bits required to form each basic text character
that the modem transmitted to a remote computer. If the parity bit uncovered
something wrong after the transmission, an error message was generated, and the
character re-sent as a result.
This doesn’t work as well for higher speeds because of the whole bit/baud thing. If
you lose one baud of data at 28,800 bps, you’ll lose 12 bits of data (a 28.8 Kbps
modem operates at 2,400 baud). If you lose 12 bits of data, you’ve lost the parity bit,
which, by definition, means it can’t check the rest of the data. Instead, a bigger-
pictLire approach is taken to error correction: Checksums are used to succinctly
describe larger amounts of data.
As with the modem communications standards, there are confusing names for
error-correction standards as well. MNP-4 and V.42 are the commonly used
standards that modems use to check for errors between them. MNP-10 is used for
cellular-modem connections.
Related to those standards are the standards for data compression, which enables
a given modem connection to transmit more data by compressing the redundant
bits according to a designated standard. In most cases, the standards used are
MNP-5 and V.42bis. These compression schemes sometimes add to the apparent
bps rate of modems, and some connection programs will report the connections
accordingly, claiming a 38 or 41 Kbps connection, for instance, using a 33.6 Kbps
modem. These designations are spurious at best; compression relies completely
on the compressibility of the data being sent.
chapter 16 4- Modems and Internet Access 399
In general, text is more compressible than binary data (images and programs). Data
that’s already compressed, like Stuffit or PKZip archives, are the least compressible
of all.
Flow control
In communications parlance, a modem is often referred to as the Data
Communications Equipment, or the DCE. Not to be outdone, your computer
gets a name, too — the Data Terminal Equipment, or DTE. Data terminates at the
computer, or the terminal equipment. This is important to know because the
DCE/DTE connection is another critical piece of the modem-connection puzzle
see Figure 16-2).
DTE/DCE Serial Connection
DTE#1
(DTE#1 Port speed)
Figure 16-2: The connection between the DCE and DTE
is usually via a serial cable on a Mac Depending on the
Mac, this can slow things down quite a bit.
Because the computer (DTE) and the modem (DCE) are often capable of
communicating data at different speeds, they need some way to direct the traffic
between them. This is done through flow control protocols. These protocols are
designed to tell the device that’s sending data when to send it cind when to wait
awhile. Early modem communications (as well as old-style teletype
communications) used the protocol, which very simply sent a special
byte of info to tell a component when to wait and when it was okay to transmit.
400 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
Since that time, things have gotten more complicated. For one thing, the
connections between DTE and DCE have sped up considerably; to keep up with
today’s modems, the connection needs to be somewliere around 57,600 bps or
faster. This is in stark contrast to older modem connections, where the serial port
would top out at 9,600 bps. Back then, sending a “turn off” or “turn on” byte was
fine. Now, though, something beyond software control is needed.
So, hardware flow control was introduced. Now the DCE and DTE send electrical
signals to one another that are separate from the data stream, enabling them to
communicate on what amounts to a direct communications line for managing the
flow of data. When the modem is ready to receive data, for instance, it can send a
Ready to Send (RTS) command to the computer. That means the modem is
connected and ready to send data over phone lines. If the data is coming the other
way, the computer can offer a Clear to Send (CTS) command, meaning the Mac is
ready to accept data sent from the modem.
If you’ve ever had or worked with an external modem, you may have noticed your
Mac and modem communicating at this level, even if you didn’t really know what
was going on. Often, modems have small LED lights that indicate what flow-control
commands are being sent and received; lights on the modem might even be labeled
“DSR,” “DTR”, and some of the other commands used between your Mac and
modem (see Figure 16-3).
Figure 16-3: This Global Village modem Includes LEDs for the
current hardware flow-control commands.
Chapter 16 > Modems and Internet Access 1
You’ll often find modem-related software includes these flow-control commands
buried somewhere in their settings boxes. The latest modems pretty much set
these things up automatically, but you’ll occasionally find yourself needing to
choose the flow control for your modem. In this case, what do you choose?
If the modem is a high-speed (9,600 bps or greater) modem, your choices for setup
will usually be one of the following: CTS and RTS (DTR), CTS Only, RTS (DTR) only,
and None. CTS and RTS is the way to go if possible. If you experience problems,
though, a common setting for Mac modems is CTS only.
Port speeds
Hand-in-hand with flow control is another setting you’ll want to pay attention to if
you ever need to set up a modem manually — port speed. This is the speed at
which the Mac’s serial port can communicate with the external modem. Remember,
we’re still discussing that DTE/DCE connection. The port speed is a vital part of
making sure the entire connection is fast enough for the data that’s flowing through
it. If it’s not, the fastest modem available won’t do you much good.
Port speed also goes together with compression technologies; remember, modems
are able to compress data streams so that, say, a 28.8 Kbps connection actually nets
a data rate of 57.6 Kbps or more (under favorable circumstances). In fact, a 28.8
connection could technically see compressed transmission rates of 115.2 Kbps or
better, although it’s rare, and there wouldn’t be more than a burst of data at that
speed.
Remember, though, that the amount of data being sent is the same — 28.8 Kbps.
Compression just fits more data in that space, by compressing the 57.6 kilobits so
they fit into 28.8 kilobits’ worth of space. Once that data arrives at the receiving
modem, it’s uncompressed.
That presents an interesting problem: How do you get the modem to transmit the
uncompressed data — all 57.6 kilobits of it to the computer fast enough to avoid a
traffic jam while another 28.8 Kbps stream of compressed data is coming into the
modem and being decompressed? Suddenly you’ve got twice as much data coming
out of the modem as you had going in (see Figure 16-4).
The numbers representing compressed and uncompressed data in this section are
theoretical and simplified for the sake of discussion. Normally a modem compresses
data as it can, coming up with widely varying rates of compression depending on the
data being compressed and other factors.
402 Part II 4^ PerforcYiing the Upgrade
DTE/DCE Connections and Bottlenecks
DTE#1
DCE
serial connection
(DTE#1 Port speed!
aoodo
DTE #2
phone connection v
(negotiated modem speed^
r
o _|_
doc
serial connection
(DTE #2 Port speed)
Figure 16-4: This diagram shows the dilemma that
can be created by modem-compression schemes.
The trick is to speed up the connection rate as well, which is accomplished by
setting the port speed at the highest point the Mac, the serial cable, and the modem
can handle. Table 16-2 shows the top port speeds for most Mac models. In general,
AV and Power Macs are capable of the fastest data rates (theoretically 230 Kbps),
although you’re more likely to see good throughput at 1 15 to 130 Kbps. 68040 Macs
(and most PowerPC PowerBooks) support 57.6 Kbps port speeds; 68030 and earlier
Macs tend to support only 19.2 Kbps.
When you actually go to set a port speed, you want to choose something at the
upper limit of your Mac’s port capabilities, even if your modem isn’t as fast as the
port. That way, any compression taking place can be compensated for because
there’s a wider pipeline for data that needs to be transmitted between the modem
and the Mac.
Chapter 16 4^ Modems and Internet Access 403
Table 16-2
Top Port Speeds for Mac Models
Model Range
Top Port Speed (bps)
Notes
Mac 128k, 512k
9,600
Doesn't support handshaking
68000, 68020, 68030
19,200
Varies by model; newer, faster
models do better
68040
57,600
Slower 68040 models may
top at 38,400
AV Macs, PowerPC-based Macs
230,000
Practical modem limit tends to
be 1 15 Kbps
PowerBook 3400, G3
230,000
Practical modem limit tends to
be 115 Kbps
Other PowerPC PowerBooks
57,600
Earlier PowerBooks
19,200
But where do you make these settings? Often, you won’t have to. With modems that
are reasonably good at self-configuration, you’ll find it’s often unnecessary to
change the settings (the Global Village and Apple-branded modems, for instance,
tend to take care of most of their own settings). Otherwise, your modem may have
installed a control panel on your Mac that can be used to change settings. If this is
the case, check that panel to see if you can alter the port speed. If not, you may be
able to pick a port speed in your communications software.
Connection negotiation
With all these settings possible, it’s a wonder that two modems can actually talk to
one another, given the likelihood that they support different speeds, have different
port settings, or implement compression in different ways. Two things prevent total
chaos, however. First, the modem standards set by the ITA govern (for the most
part) what and how modems should be able to communicate with one another.
Second, modems themselves go through a basic negotiation ritual to determine
which standard is best for them to use for communications.
If you’ve worked with a modem in the past, you might be familiar with the audible
screeches they tend to make as they’re connecting to other modems. Here’s a quick
look at what, exactly, is happening when two modems begin to chat:
404 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
1. Your modem (let’s call it the caller) picks up the phone line and tests for a dial
tone. If it finds one, it dials the number it’s been assigned by a software
program.
2. The answering modem picks up the line when it detects ringing. It then waits
to hear if the caller is a modem.
3. When the caller modem detects that the line has been answered, it sends out
a basic carrier signal designed to let the receiver know it is a modem.
4. The answering modem, recognizing the carrier, sends back its answer as a
carrier, usually slightly higher in tone and continuous.
5. The answering modem then broadcasts all the communications protocols it
knows. With any modem, the noise can be horrific; if you have a 56K modem,
you know what an amazing cacophony it is capable of emitting.
6. The receiving modem broadcasts its protocols, too, and one by one the
modems determine which protocols they support and which they don’t. If
they don’t both support a particular protocol, a connection isn’t established
at that speed. Line noise can affect this; if you get bad noise at a time when
33.6 Kbps modems are trying to negotiate a 33.6 connection, they might
decide that the most they can really support is 31 Kbps.
7. Once they decide on a top speed, it’s reported to the respective computers as
a connect, followed by the speed that was established. Usually the modems’
speakers go quiet at this point, but they continue to negotiate things like
compression and error correction. Once all this is established (usually in a
matter of seconds, if that), the modems are ready to send data back and forth.
There’s some logic to leaving the speaker on through this process: It lets you hear
the connection and see how things are going between the two computers. If you get
really used to listening to your modem, you may even find you’re able to predict
what sort of connection is being made by the sounds of the tones.
p Cross- ^
Reference
choosing and Connecting a Modem
It would seem the most important thing to consider when choosing a modem is
speed. That’s certainly true for the majority of modem users. It’s nice to get the
fastest connection possible for accessing online services and the Internet. “You can
never be too thin, have too much RAM, or have enough bandwidth,” the saying
might go. {Bandwidth, incidentally, is one way of describing the capacity of a
networking connection. The more bandwidth your connection has, the more data it
can transmit at one time, resulting in data transmissions that are completed more
quickly.)
If you really want to turn the modem's speaker off, you can do that. If it's not an
option in your Modem setup control panel or your communication program's prefer-
ences menu, check out the guide to the modem AT command set, discussed in
Chapter 26.
Chapter 16 -f Modems and Internet Access 405
Table 16-3 lists popular Mac modem manufacturers.
Table 16-3
Mac-Compatible Modem Manufacturers
Name
Web Site
Global Village
www.global vi ^ 1 age.com
Supra
v^ww. diamondmm.com
3Com/USRobotics
www.3com.com
Best Data
www.bestdata.com
Hayes Communications
www.hayes.com
Boca Research
www.bocaresearch.com
Modem choices
Aside from speed, however, you may find a few other factors go into your modem
decision. Modems can come with different sets of features that focus on telephony
capabilities, voicemail, fax capabilities, and so on. You might also find modems that
support software upgradeability, enabling you to move up to the latest modem
transmission standards as they’re agreed upon. In most cases, such modems are
flash upgradeable, meaning they have special nonvolatile memory that can be
erased and rewritten by a special software program.
Although most people have no argument with buying upgradeable modems, one line
of thinking suggests you stay away from modems that require the use of a control
panel for day-to-day operation. This makes some sense, although it's a clear trade-off.
If you have a modem that doesn't require a special control panel, you won't have to
install or configure any software just to get it to work; instead, the software you use
for the modem, like a PPP control panel or the AOL client software, can be com-
pletely responsible for the modem configuration. A modem that does have its own
control panel, though, makes it easy to change basic settings that might othenvise be
buried in AT command set codes, but the extension can cause conflicts. And you can't
operate the modem at all if you start up your Mac with extensions turned off.
Internal or external
One of the first decisions to make is whether or not you want an internal or external
modem. Most Macs offer better support for external modems, with the exception of
the internal modem port supported in the Power Macintosh 5200, 5300, 5400 series,
most Performa models from the Performa 630 through the Performa/Power Mac
6500 series and many PowerBooks. In other cases, you really have very little choice
for internal modems.
406 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Most of the models just described (aside from the PowerBooks) offer a special
Apple communications slot (or comm slot) that can accept an internal expansion
card. These slots require cards made especially for them. Even though most of the
communications slots are based on PCI technology, they aren’t true PCI cards, and
only communications slot-compatible cards will work correctly.
The most fun part of shopping for comm-slot modems is that they’re pretty tough
to find. Having been discontinued by both Apple and Global Village (who made
many of the comm-slot modems for Apple), they’re really only available on the used
market. You can have some luck posting a WTB (want to buy) message in some of
the usual online places, though.
Another thing to note; In many Macs that feature communications slots, that slot is
the only way you can get Ethernet connectivity for that Mac. (And, fortunately,
comm-slot Ethernet cards are easier to find.) If you expect to use the Mac at any
point on an Ethernet network, you’re probably better off with an external modem
so that the comm-slot remains available for the networking card.
The other thing I don’t like much about comm-slot modems is that they don’t have
any lights. An external modem gives you much more feedback, allowing you to see
immediately what’s going on with the modem, if it’s still connected, and other little
tidbits. Plus, external modems are simple to install, uninstall, and trade with
neighbors.
Add-ons
Smart people have told me in the past that their best advice is to buy a modem
that’s really well designed for being a modem, and let something else handle
speakerphone, answering machine, or voicemail duties. There’s probably some
logic to this — the more things a modem does, the more things that can go wrong.
Often, modems are using complicated software programs to perform functions that
telephones and voicemail systems can manage without the threat of crashing.
That said, nearly any modem is going to be capable of dealing with faxes and, if you
expect to use that ability, it’s nice to get good fax software as well as a deal on
optical character-recognition software, if it’s included. If you do plan to use your
Mac as communications central for your home or small office, you might consider
some of the other possibilities;
4 Speakerphone. Some modems use their own microphone and speaker for the
connection, whereas others use the Mac’s PlainTalk microphone (on AV and
Power Macintoshes) and the Mac’s speakers. Note, however, that nearly any
modem has a pass-through port to which you can plug a telephone set. Not
only can you answer calls when they come in, but you can have your modem
dial out for you (from a personal information manager program, for instance).
chapter 16 4 Modems and Internet Access 407
Voiceinail/answering machine. If your answering machine is on the fritz and
you don’t want to spend the $5 a month for the phone company’s voicemail,
certain modems will have your Mac take messages for you. If you do get this
feature, remember it's usually only implemented in software. That means
you’ve got to leave your Mac on all the time to take messages.
> Caller ID. This is a handy feature you might as well turn on if your modem
allows it. Usually a simple software add-on, this enables your modem to
translate Caller ID signals to let you know who’s calling.
The problem with most of these add-ons, aside from the fact that they require you
to keep your Mac powered all the time, is that they require you to hook your
modem up to your main voice line instead of a secondary line that’s only for data.
To get these benefits, then, you need to be someone who only occasionally uses the
modem for, say, connecting to other modems.
Faxing
It’s tough these days to buy a modem that doesn’t come with the capability for
communicating directly with facsimile machines, and it’s a nice feature. This is
especially so if, as discussed in the previous section, you have at least two phone
lines, so that one can be dedicated to the modem (as a data-out and fax-in line) and
one can be reserved for voice calls.
Different modems support different faxing capabilities, although all typically
support 9,600 bps Group 3 faxing, the basic standard for most of the industry. This
enables your modem to generally communicate with any fax machine, whether a
modem or a stand-alone machine, without trouble.
You may also find that your modem supports 14.4 Kbps or higher speeds for faxing.
Although few stand-alone machines support these speeds, some of the newer ones
do. This can also be useful in Instances where you want to fax a document from one
computer to another. (Although I’m sort of knocking my head against a wall to
come up with a really good reason for you to do that. You might as well e-mail the
document as an attachment. Here’s the only reason I can come up with: Use it as a
“poor man’s scanner”. Fax a document to another computer so you have a
graphical image to work with. Of course, you could just take a screen shot of the
original document using §€-Shift-3, so that’s still not much of a recison. Go ahead and
ignore me. I’m just chattering.)
Probably the most important component for faxing is fax software. Some are
certainly better than others. Global Village fax and the fax software that comes with
Apple-included modems is generally well integrated with the Mac OS, going so far
as to enable you to hold down the Option key while pulling down the File menu to
find that the Print command has been replaced by a Fax command. (The Print
command resurfaces when you access the menu without holding down Option.)
Similarly, some software packages add a special Fax command to the File menu
and/or a special icon on the menu bar.
408 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
In any case, faxing is usually handled with a driver in the Chooser, a virtual printer
driver that prints pages to your modem so that they might be faxed. If you need to
send a fax and other commands aren’t working, you’ll usually have luck by selecting
the fax printer driver in the Chooser as your default printer (see Figure 16^5).
Figure 16-5: Click the fax driver in the Chooser to
"print" pages directly to your fax/modem.
Flash-upgradeable
If you have the choice, you really can’t go too wrong by choosing a software-
upgradeable modem. These modems have their command codes and programming
in a stable but rewritable form of static RAM. This is sometimes called firmware
because it’s not hardwired into the modem, but it’s not quite as easy to change as a
typical software driver, either.
Different manufacturers have different processes for upgrading modems via
firmware additions. Usually, you’ll find the firmware upgrades and instructions
posted on the modem manufacturer’s Web site or available from their customer-
support lines. After downloading the firmware upgrade, you may be asked to
restart with Extensions off (hold down the Shift key as your Mac boots up) or to
simply turn off AppleTalk and disconnect devices from your serial ports. Next, run
the update software. It (and any README text files that accompany the update) will
guide you through the process.
The end result can be pretty incredible. Although some firmware upgrades don’t do
much more than fix bugs, many of them are designed to upgrade the modem to a
higher-level modem protocol — that means faster speeds. The latest round of
upgrades has been for 33.6 Kbps modems, many of which can be upgraded to 56
Kbps speeds. Now, many of these same modems (or newer 56 Kbps modems) can
Chapter 16 -f Modems and Internet Access 409
be firmware upgraded from their original 56 Kbps standards (either USR s X2 or
Rockwell’s 56KFlex) to the v.90 universal 56 Kbps standard.
If you have the opportunity to buy one of these modems, snatch it up; it might even
be worth paying a few more dollars than for a modem that isn’t upgradeable.
GeoPort Telecom Adapter
Many Power Macintosh (and AV Macintosh) users have one other option that hasn’t
yet been touched on much: You can get online without a modem at all. How’s that?
Using the GeoPort technology built into a Power Mac’s serial ports, the PowerPC
chip (or DSP chip in an AV Mac) can be made to emulate a modem using nothing
more than software. In other words, no physical modem and special
communications chips are required; instead, the Mac does all the converting,
compression and sending of data on its own.
This is actually conceivable for just about any computer, but Apple decided to do
this because of the advanced capabilities of the GeoPort serial ports when
combined with the power of the PowerPC processor. It was also to be quite the
boon for Mac users, because they wouldn’t ever have to buy a new modem, just
upgrade the software to faster speeds.
It hasn’t exactly taken off. Although the GeoPort/modem approach has met with
some success and was a popular way for Apple to add modem capabilities to
PowerPC Performas for a while, three problems have hindered adoption of the
GeoPort approach: First, you have to buy a GeoPort Telecom Adapter, which
enables your Mac to communicate directly with phone lines (see Figure 16-6).
These tend to run about $100 — cheaper than many modems, but not by too much.
Figure 16-6: The Telecom Adapter isn’t an actual modem, but it is
required for your Mac to use the GeoPort to emulate modem functions.
410 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
The second problem is that Apple has been slow to release upgrades to the
GeoPort software (the Apple Telecom software) that made it work as a faster
modem. The GeoPort software tends to be months, if not years, behind modem
standards. By the time Apple writes the software to catch up to modems, the price
of those modems is very competitive.
Lastly, the Telecom software has become more of a drain on the PowerPC as the
software’s modem speeds and functionality has improved. That is, running at
higher modem speeds seems to slow down a PowerPC chip considerably; a GeoPort
solution running at 14.4 Kbps leaves the system sprightly and responsive, but a
GeoPort modem emulator running at 33.6 Kbps can make the overall system seem
slow (depending on the processing speed of the Mac, although reasonably powerful
PowerPC 603e and 604e-based Macs get sluggish in my experience).
That is unfortunate, because the GeoPort offers a number of other advantages,
including advanced voicemail functions, great built-in fax software, and a number of
other features. Included with the Apple Telecom software is Apple Phone, a very
cool little program designed to help you manage telephony (voicemail, faxing) on
your Mac (see Figure 16-7).
Figure 16-7: Apple Phone software, included with the GeoPort Telecom software,
helps you manage your phone from your Mac.
chapter 16 Modems and Internet Access 411
If you like the idea of the GeoPort, you can certainly try it. The GeoPort adapter is
still available from Apple retailers in some quantity, although Apple has stated in its
Tech Notes that the company won’t be upgrading the Telecom software past the
version included with Mac OS 8,0. This is a good indication that Apple is moving
away from the GeoPort approach. In fact, even though the Power Macintosh G3
machines include GeoPort technology (GeoPort is also the reason that Power Mac
serial ports can transmit at 230 Kbps), they don’t support the Telecom Adapter,
presumably to save costs.
Tip If you already have an Internet connection via Ethernet, for instance, you could always
use a GeoPort adapter as an advanced telephony device for managing your voice
phone and outgoing faxes. Ifs a little cheaper than a regular modem and offers very
capable software for those tasks.
In the Performa 6300, 6400, and 6500 series of Macs, Apple did something interesting — it
shipped different modems with different Mac models. One of those models is a GeoPort
adapter that happens to be built as an expansion card instead of an external GeoPort
adapter. The net result is your internal "modem" is really using the PowerPCs processor to
handle communications duties, which can often slow down the system.
Here's how you can figure out if you have a GeoPort modem. Go into ClarisWorks and open
a new communications session. In the window, type ATIl and press the Return key. If the
number returned by the modem is a 0, you have a GeoPort Telecom Adapter. (A Global
Village 28.8 modem will return the number 240, and a 14.4 Kbps Global Village modem
will return 255.)
1 got a Performa 6400 a little while back for the office. The first thing I did with it was rip the
GeoPort adapter out of the communications slot. They can be very frustrating little buggers.
On that particular machine, modem communications slowed the processor so severely that
it was a horribly unpleasant experience to surf the Web.
If you don't have the budget to buy an external modem for your GeoPort adapter, a few
tricks are available for speeding it up. First, make sure you have the latest version of the
Telecom software that is included on the CD-ROM for Mac OS 8.0 and above or can be
downloaded from Apple's support library. Second, make sure you've got plenty of RAM in
your system, and add a cache RAM SIMM if you can afford it — these 603e-based Performas
and Power Macs get a good boost from a cache RAM chip anyway.
The only other option is to try backing the GeoPort down in speed a little bit, settling for
28.8 connections instead of 33.6. Reports have it that the entire system reacts a little more
quickly at that transmission speed.
412 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Installing a modem
Once you’ve decided on a modem, you’re ready to install it. In most cases, the
modem is the easy part — it’s installing all the software to run it that’s more
challenging. You’ll have to install the correct modem driver to get your Mac to
recognize it. Next you have to install software to use the Mac for various activities:
Internet access, online services, or modem-to-modem communications.
Whatever sort of modem you have and however it's installed, there's one precaution
you should take in every instance -use a surge protector on the phone lines con-
nected to your computer. If you have a modern surge protector (not just a power
strip) it should feature phone jacks for protecting your twisted-pair phone cable. It's
very important that you do this. In my experience, more damage Is done to ports,
modems, and Mac internals from surges over phone lines than from surges over reg-
ular power lines. It's that important.
Internal modems
Installing an internal modem is very similar to installing any other expansion card —
the only difference is you’ll most likely need to install the card in the special
communications slot in your Mac. If you’re not sure which it is, consult your Mac’s
manual. Figure 1(>8 shows you what the slot looks like in a Performa 6200-series
Macintosh. The slot is usually quite a bit smaller than other upgrade slots and
should be clearly labeled as a communications slot or a modem slot on most Mac
logic boards.
Of course, before you go looking for it you should shut down your Mac, ground
yourself and unplug the computer. Open your Mac (or pull the logic board out to
access it) and locate the communications slot. Once you find it, plug the card into
the slot so the phone connectors are available through the back panel of the
computer (you may need to remove a small piece of plastic to open a hole in the
case for the connector). If everything looks well seated, close up the computer and
turn your Mac back on.
After the Mac has started up, run any software that came with the modem; if it’s a
GeoPort adapter, run the Apple Telecom software included on the Mac OS 8.0 or
above CD-ROM. (Otherwise, most comm-slot modems were made by Global Village
and require Global Village’s Teleport software to work correctly.) You may have to
restart after installing the software.
With the software installed, you’ll probably have a new control panel that controls
the modem — either a Teleport control panel (for a Global Village modem) or an
Express Modem control panel (for GeoPort modems). Use that control panel to
alter any settings you feel are appropriate for your setup.
Chapter 16 -f Modems and internet Access 413
Figure 16-8: Installing a comm-slot modem is like installing a PCI
or NuBus card, only it requires cards that will fit in this special slot.
You’ll notice something else, too. In the Chooser, the modem port is no longer a
choice. Unfortunately, you still can’t use the modem port for ainother device, even
though you’re not using it for a modem anymore. It’s locked up together with the
communications slot, rendering it useless for other devices.
External modems and GeoPort adapters
You’ll generally install an external modem on the modem port, if it’s free. If it
isn’t, you can install a modem on the printer port, but you’ll have to make sure
AppleTalk is off, and that means you’ll be cut off from any opportunity for LocalTalk
networking. (If you’re using a different sort of hardware for your network, you can
leave AppleTalk on and make sure that LocalTalk isn’t selected in the AppleTalk or
Network control panel.) Using the printer port also means that certain modem-
based software programs may be confused because your modem isn’t on the
modem port. (Few program will mind, but some older programs may have trouble
with this setup.) Also, modem software tends to default to the modem port, so you
may have to change that setting in most of your modem programs.
To install the modem, shut down your Mac, and then plug the modem’s cable into
the serial port on the back of your Mac. Plug the modem’s power supply into a
wall socket or surge protector, and then turn on the modem (if necessary). Restart
your Mac.
414 Part II Performing the Upgrade
When the Mac has restarted, install any software that was included with your Mac.
Once it’s installed, you may have to restart your computer. From now on, you
should have a new control panel for your modem, in most cases. In others, you may
have communications software or something similar that sets up your modem.
If you’ve installed a GeoPort adapter, you’ll need to install the latest version of the
Apple Telecom software you can find, probably the version included with your
latest Mac OS CD-ROM. Or you can download the software from Apple’s support
site at WWW. appl e . com/support. The Telecom software installs a control panel
called Apple Express Modem (or just Express Modem) in your Mac’s Control Panels
folder.
High-speed Connections
Modems aren’t the only way to connect to the Internet and online services; they’re
just the cheapest and most convenient choice for many users because all they rely
on is a regular telephone line. The connections are low-speed at best, however,
even with the most advanced modems.
To get yourself a faster connection, you generally have to turn to a new type of
connection technology — preferably something that acts a whole lot like a regular
computer network, transmitting data over lines of higher quality than the typical
copper phone lines installed by the telephone company when your home,
apartment, or office building was built.
Most of these high-speed connections are actually basic networking schemes.
Using some sort of network adapter, you hook up to a larger, regional network.
This network, in turn, is connected to the Internet. Here are the sort of technologies
I mean:
^ Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). This is a digital telephone
service, a concept pioneered by the phone companies in the 1960s and then
promptly forgotten — for all practical purposes. A desire for higher-speed
access to the Internet has generated interest in this technology again, but it’s
only taken off in the urban centers of the largest U.S. cities (and a few others
around the world. I’m told). It’s a consideration for small business and home
office use, although other technologies may soon eclipse it. It’s expensive
to implement, because standard phone wiring can’t be used; the phone
company has to dig up streets and change your home or business wiring to
make it all work.
4^ Cable data connections. It just so happens that the TV cable connection
running into many homes is a whole lot like computer-networking cable. (At
least, it’s a lot like one of the types of networking cable, called coax, thinnet,
or 10Base2.) Repurposed for Internet access, the connection that your cable
company can provide you fast connections to the Internet at a pretty
reasonable price.
chapter 16 ^ Modems and Internet Access 415
♦ Satellite connections. Using satellite dishes a lot like the 18-inch minidishes
used for TV programming, satellite service providers can give you fairly high-
speed access to the Internet. Unfortunately, the transmission only goes in one
direction. You can’t beam data back up to the satellite yourself, so you have to
use a modem connection to send data.
4 Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). This is another phone company technology,
only it uses regular phone lines. By using the high-frequency parts of a phone
connection (outside of human hearing), DSL achieves high data rates while
maintaining voice communications. DSL is coming on quick and strong in a
number of locales. If you have the opportunity, a DSL connection might be a
great idea for your Mac, especially if it has Ethernet built in.
> T-1 line. Using fiber optic cable, a T-1 line is the preferred way to get entire
buildings or companies online at once. The T-1 handles 1.5 megabits per
second. These leased phone lines are a tad expensive, although you can
often find shared T-1 access that enables you to use part of the T-1 line for
lower fees.
♦ T-3 line. Currently the backbone of the Internet, T-3 lines are rarely used for
direct, individual Internet access. They transfer about 45 megabits per
second. Higher-capacity lines beyond T-3 are starting to be added to the
Internet infrastructure, whereas T-3 lines are occasionally used to serve data
to and from typical big-city Internet service providers.
You can choose a good number of high-speed technologies. But how likely are you
to get a faster connection? A lot depends on where you live. If you live close to a
large city, near a major street, and within the service area of a progressive phone,
cable or utility company, you may have a chance. Rural dwellers will have less luck,
although some technologies may still become available to you over time.
ril talk in more depth about ISDN, DSL, and cable modems because, at the time of
writing, these three technologies are thriving options for many Mac users. (If you’re
lucky enough to have access to a T-1 line for Internet connections, you can learn
more about connecting to one of those in Chapter 17 — T1 and Ethernet go hand-in-
hand.) Satellite access is still on the horizon for Mac owners; the only viable
satellite solutions currently use ISA expansion cards, an aging Intel-compatible PC-
only technology.
ISDN
At one point, Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) was the next step for our
telephone infrastructure. The phone company decided that the copper wiring and
mechanical switches, as well as other aspects of our aging telephone network
should be overhauled, allowing for a more feature-rich phone service that would be
easier to run and allow more people to have access to it. (World Fair-style video
phones may have been largely anticipated.) It wasn’t seen as an opportunity to
create a huge distributed network of PCs; when it was first conceived in the 1960s,
there weren’t any PCs.
416 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Since that time, the phone companies have broken up, PCs have used modem
technology as a mobile means of connecting to one another, and trends toward
smaller offices, telecommuting, and working on the weekends have all contributed
to demand for such a network to be instituted for dial-up data, instead of just
feature-rich voice or teleconferencing communications. Many regional phone
companies have pushed ahead with the massive infrastructure change that ISDN
requires, although progress hasn’t been as universal among the Baby Bell
companies. At the same time, the world hasn’t waited for phone companies to get
their act together, instead creating new and innovated technologies — for example,
Caller ID, 56K transmissions, DSL — that can exist over the old copper wires that
most of us have running into our house.
Now, ISDN is at an interesting crossroads. In the urban centers of many larger cities,
you can switch your house or office over to ISDN service completely, or you can
just add an additional ISDN line. If you switch completely, it means you’ve got to do
some radical purchasing, too, as ISDN only works with special digital phones (not
regular analog phones). It also means a couple of other annoyances — such as all
your phones having to have power to them to operate. Lose the lights, and the
phones go with them.
Is this a great idea? That remains to be seen. Current phone service for voice
communications is pretty adequate, and other competitors — such as satellite and
cellular communications — may end up taking a load off of land lines in the near
future. At the same time, DSL technology promises to use existing phone lines, but
at a different frequency from voice communications, meaning it will be possible to
overlay an entire nation’s worth of digital data without tying up the phone lines the
way we do now. And people really like the idea that their phones work even when
their electricity does not, so they may be unlikely to make a wholesale change to
ISDN for regular phone communications. The lack of such a comfort as phones that
work during bad storms would not necessarily be seen as progress.
The switch to digital phone technology may continue behind the scenes, much as it
is now, with the phone companies transparently updating their own equipment for
higher speeds and more bandwidth, while leaving our phone lines relatively alone.
That might also play out if some other sort of high-speed access becomes the
dominant one.
How ISDN works
Of course, all this talk of the future isn’t all that useful if you’re sick of watching
Netscape Navigator spin its icon. If you live in an area that offers ISDN, it is an
interesting solution to higher speed Internet access — and one that works both
downstream, for receiving data quickly from the Internet, and upstream, for sending
data to the Internet (as in running your own Web server computer). For most
people, the upper limit of an ISDN connection (especially using off-the-shelf
computer peripherals) is about 128 Kbps, or a little over twice the speed of a 56
Kbps modem. There are, however, other advantages over modems, including the
following:
Chapter 16 -f Modems and internet Access 417
•f Latency. Overall, a modem has to “think” about a connection more than a
networking technology such as ISDN does. With all the compression, error
correction, line noise, and other issues, modems tend to waste micro- and
nanoseconds transferring data, checking it, and uploading it to your Mac.
Over time, this lag builds up to something noticeable.
^ Negotiation. Most ISDN connections take about three seconds to initiate and
begin transmitting. For 56 Kbps and other high-speed modems, this
negotiation process can take 30 to 45 seconds or longer. That means ISDN
connections seem quicker for intermittent surfers and can be cheaper for
by-the-minute Internet services.
> Reliability. Because line noise isn’t a factor for the completely digital
connection, ISDN gives you a high-speed connection every time, instead of the
shoot-and-miss process for analog modems.
’f Flexibility. Because an ISDN line is “smarter” than a regular telephone line,
the ISDN line can scale your Internet connection from 128 Kbps to 64 Kbps, for
instance, to allow a voice call to ring through on your telephone set. It can
also give you more information about incoming calls and reroute them more
intelligently so that faxes, for instance, always get picked up by a computer or
ISDN fax machine.
Unless ways to overlay these features on regular phone lines continue to be
discovered. ISDN could easily be the phone technology of the future. Currently,
though, most people focus on using ISDN for high-speed Internet connection if they
worry about it at all. In addition, because it’s not yet a completely accepted
technology, it can be quite a headache to have installed. You need new wiring, new
service, and, most likely, a new billing scheme from the phone company.
In exchange, you get higher-bandwidth channels coming into your house that offer
interesting features and high-speed data. In essence, you become a network node
on your phone company’s network, almost as if their Ethernet or LocalTalk cabling
was stretching over telephone poles and under streets to reach from their offices to
your home or business.
Most phone companies offer Basic Rate access, which gives you three channels —
two full 64 Kbps channels (A and B) for data and voice, and a D channel that’s used
for sending data about incoming calls and otherwise controlling the other two
channels. Your ISDN equipment can then either link these two channels together for
data service, or selectively use them for voice calls and data calls at the same time.
Another level of service, called Primary Rate, is designed more for larger
businesses, enabling many, many channels to be typed together to create high-
bandwidth solutions for voice and data in an office situation. Primary Rate service
is generally charged on a channel-per-channel basis so that companies can gain T-1
level access or higher, depending on their locations* needs.
418 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
You may also find that your phone company offers single channel service, designed
for people who want to use the connection almost exclusively for online access. This
gets you one 64 Kbps channel, making it faster than the fastest modem, with the
same inherent latency and negotiation advantages.
Getting ISDN
If you’re interested in ISDN for your home or office, call the phone company and
find out if they offer ISDN in your area. If they do, you’ll want to ask them how they
bill for ISDN; some companies bill by the minute, whereas others offer a flat rate. If
your phone company bills by the minute, take a hard look at the numbers before
choosing the service. You may find some other method of high-speed access is
more price competitive.
If you are interested in ISDN, you’ll have to sign up for installation. Reportedly, that
takes a few days or weeks, no matter where you live in the U.S. Californians
probably fare the best in their larger cities, but the accepted truth is that it takes
longer to get ISDN than it does to get a regular phone line. The phone company may
need to dig up your street to get it to you — and, at the very least, they’ll need to
replace the wiring near your house and often inside as well.
Next, you’ll need some equipment for your computer. Remember that an ISDN
connection is a connection to the phone company’s network. That means you’ll
need to terminate the networking connection on your end, just as with the
LocalTalk or Ethernet connections discussed in Chapter 17. So, a terminal adapter
or TA-1 is required for an ISDN connection. You’ll then need an ISDN network
adapter (either an expansion card or a modem) for your Mac. This plugs into
the terminal adapter, allowing it to translate the network feed into data your
Mac can use.
As you read early on in this chapter, some devices called modems aren’t really
modems, because they don’t modulate/demodulate. An ISDN modem is the perfect
example of this. It isn’t a modem, it’s just an all-in-one ISDN box that fills the same
need as a regular modem — it allows access to the Internet. But ISDN modems are
cute, and they offer most of the advantages of an ISDN connection without some of
the headaches, including an integrated adapter and TA-1 in a single box.
Armed with an ISDN line and an adapter, you’re ready to get connected. You’ll need
to connect the adapter to your Mac’s serial port (if it’s external) or install it in a
NuBus or PCI slot. Next, follow the instructions for installing the adapter’s software
carefully. Hooking the ISDN adapter up can be a rather complex process, requiring
quite a bit of help from your phone company.
You can also add ISDN to your local area network. Using a special ISDN router, you
can add the full bandwidth of an ISDN connection to your small office network,
allowing everyone access to e-mail and Web surfing. ISDN can also be connected to
chapter 16 ^ Modems and Internet Access 419
a Web server computer, enabling a small business to have reasonable all-around
access to the Internet for the cost of a few modems and the access. (I’ll discuss this
sort of access more in Chapter 17.)
Table 16-4 shows some manufacturers of ISDN connections and solutions. Note that
Sagem offers a GeoPort adapter for ISDN, which is a little cheaper than a full-fledged
ISDN all-in-one modem.
Table 16-4
ISDN Solutions for Macs
Manufacturer
Solution Type
Web Site
3Com
Modems, network
www.3com.com
Netopia
Modems, network
www.netopi a .com
Motorola
Modems
www.b1tsurfer.com
Sagem
Cards, modems, GeoPort
www.sagem.com
US Robotics
Modems
www.3com.com
Zyxel
Modems
WWW. zyxel .com
If you're considering an external ISDN adapter, remember the modem port limita-
tions on pre-PowerMacs. The GeoPort in AV and Power Macs is capable of up to 230
Kbps, so it shouldn't be limiting to an ISDN connection. Quadra and older Macs, how-
ever, are limited to 57.6 Kbps connections and may have trouble reaching high
speeds with external ISDN adapters that use more than one ISDN channel. Opt for an
internal card (assuming you can find one that supports Nu Bus), which shouldn't suf-
fer the same setbacks.
DSL
When I first wrote this chapter, I decided that digital subscribe line (DSL)
technology wouldn’t be discussed in much depth, as it seemed more of a
development for the future. In the time it took for the chapter to be returned to me
for a second look, I’d decided that DSL was happening much faster than I’d initially
thought, and the time had come to discuss it. That’s how quickly things are moving
in this industry. This fervor makes sense, however.
Unlike ISDN, which requires you to have your phone lines and phone equipment
switched over, DSL technologies work over your existing phone lines, using high-
frequency tones on your lines that won’t interrupt regular phone service. Instead,
data just hums along as if your phone line were a high-speed network connection,
while your phones work as usual.
420 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
How it works
DSL is often called xDSL because there are so many other related and somewhat
interchangeable technologies. (They’re all also sometimes called ADSL, just as a
convenient way to confuse matters.) If you’re really interested, Table 16-5 gives you
some indication of the different types.
The xDSL technology works by using the higher end of the frequency spectrum on a
regular twisted-pair copper line for data transmission. You get regular telephone
service between OKHz and 4KHz on the line. But data can fill the void between 4kHz
and 2.2mHz on your regular telephone line, allowing you to connect to an ISP or a
corporate xDSL dial-up. This line then provides transmission of data at varying
rates, depending on the technologies used and the conditions of the line, as well as
the type of subscriber loop (telephone network connection to your nearest
telephone company’s office) and the conditions on the line.
So what’s up with this upstream/downstream stuff? With many Internet
connectivity options, the speeds at which you can receive data at your Mac (or
your LAN) are much faster than the speeds at which you can send data back to
your ISP. So, the downstream numbers represent the speeds at which you’ll be able
to download data; upstream numbers tell you how fast you’ll be able to upload
data. This is particularly interesting if you plan to run an Internet server computer
over your DSL line; if the upstream numbers are too slow, your Internet visitors
may not have an optimum experience.
Table 16-5
Different Types of DSL Technologies
Acronym
Name
Description
Throughput
(Downstream/
Upstream)
ADSL
Asymmetrical DSL
Catch-all name
1.5-6 Mbps/64-384
Kbps
HDSL
High-speed DSL
Higher speeds
for upstream
128 Kbps-1.5 Mbps
SDSL
Single-line DSL
Like HDSL but only
uses one wire pair
128 Kbps-1.5 Mbps
VDSL
Very high-speed DSL
High-speed, but
must be very close to
telephone company
51 Mbps/1.6-2.3
Mbps
RADSL
Rate-adaptive DSL
Likely deployment
candidate, adapting
speeds for line conditions
256 Kbps-6.1
Mbps/256 Kbps-1 .5
Mbps
chapter 16 ^ Modems and Internet Access Z|.2 1
xDSL connections are subject to the same conditions modem connections are —
noise on the line, poor installations, unshielded cabling, and even weather will
ultimately affect the speed and quality of your connections.
The xDSL technologies have an advantage over most ISDN connections, however, in
that theyVe usually continuous connections that require no special phone-call style
negotiation. (You may find your phone company offers a bandwidth-on-demand
system that works a little differently.) This adds to the lack-of-latency advantage
ISDN has over regular modems: With xDSL, it doesn’t take any noticeable delay
before you start downloading data after a few minutes of idle time; with a modem it
can take a full minute and with ISDN it can take a few seconds. Eventually, this adds
up. It also means that phone companies and ISPs may be more likely to offer flat-
rate services for xDSL, because you can’t easily log off.
xDSL connects to your Mac — or to a workgroup of Macs — via an Ethernet
connection. That means, for the most part, that xDSL connection hardware doesn’t
need to be Mac-specific. Instead, the equipment acts as an Internet router through
which you can access the Internet over an existing Ethernet connection or by
connecting your Mac directly to the Ethernet port on the router.
From there, the options abound. You may need a special splitter to use the same
phone line for voice and data communications, or you may not. Your router may be
in the form of an ADSL “modem” (like ISDN, it’s not really a modem — just a
convenient little box) that you can hook an analog phone directly to for voice
communications. You may also find that the modem is designed to dial up your
phone company or ISP for bandwidth-on-demand service.
If you've ever wondered why Apple's iMac model — specifically designed for home
users - shipped with an Ethernet port for networking, you may be seeing your answer
right here. xDSL may prove to be a killer Internet technology for a lot of small offices
and households currently hampered by slow modem connections. It's not a boom for
absolutely everyone, but it has potential.
How to get service
Your local phone company probably controls xDSL service in your area, so that’s
where you should go to learn about service. In my experience, xDSL service is
coming on like gangbusters, with local telephone companies seeing this as a profit-
center they never really believed ISDN was. So, it seems phone companies are
rolling it out more quickly.
That’s not to say you’ll necessarily see it in rural areas anytime soon. The current
xDSL technologies tend to be limited most severely by the distance your particular
local loop covers. If you’re more than a few miles from your telephone company’s
physical switch, you’ll have trouble getting this first round of service.
422 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
If you live in a large or medium-sized city, though, you should have better luck. In
most cases you’ll need both the xDSL service (which will require an installation fee
and an additional monthly or by-the-minute charge) and ISP service to get
connected to the Internet. You may find that your phone company offers both
and/or that the ISP service isn’t much more expensive than regular modem-based
service.
You’ll also need a router of some sort, whether it’s an enclosed modem-style box for
an individual connection or a networking contraption designed to serve a larger
office workgroup. (Note that even minimal xDSL service has the potential to serve
as a quality Internet connection for five to ten Macs in a small office.) You’ll plug
the router into your Mac’s Ethernet port (or into your workgroup’s hub), and then
set up your Mac’s TCP control panel according to your phone company’s and/or
ISP’s instructions. (In some cases, you may need to use the PPP control panel, too.)
That’s it — you’re on the Internet.
Web
Netspeed (www. netspeed . com), a division of Cisco Solutions (www.ci sco.com), is
an important early player in xDSL access, as are most of the local telephone compa-
nies. For more information of xDSL, check out the Telechoice xDSL Report at
www.xdsl .com/.
Cable
Offering up to two megabits per second, the cable companies have a couple of
advantages in the race to provide people high-speed Internet access in their
homes and offices. First, cable is already pretty pervasive. Having control over a
line coming into your home is a critical advantage — a lot of Internet providers have
to convince you to use some other mechanism for using their services (such as
satellite receivers, wireless boxes, or a new type of wiring). Because cable is often
already wired through the neighborhood — and uses a type of cabling that offers
more bandwidth than telephone lines — it’s certainly worth considering.
Cable has one serious drawback: It’s currently a downstream-only technology. That
is, cable companies and cable wiring are only designed to send signals to your TV,
but aren’t designed to accept anything back from your home. Internet connectivity
is a two-way street, however, so cable companies will either need to figure out how
to offer upstream access or require you to use a phone line to send commands
while receiving higher-speed feeds along the cable wiring. (In some cases they
already are coming up with solutions, so consult your cable company before taking
my word for it. Newer cable technologies are beginning to appear that enable you
to upload over the cable connection, albeit at slower speeds than the downstream
technology.)
Even if it’s downstream only, the connection should be pretty fast, as cable has the
potential to offer 2 Mbps of bandwidth. This bandwidth will need to be shared
among households or businesses in a particular node of the cable company’s
network, so realistic bandwidth will probably be closer to 200 to 300 Kbps for a
chapter 16 ^ Modems and Internet Access 423
typical cable connection. That’s still great speed, however, offering some of the
same lack-of-latency and negotiation advantages as ISDN and xDSL
As the cable companies ramp up their offerings, it’s likely that a number of methods
for getting connected will emerge, although the Mac compatibility is currently
suspect. The only indicators available are cable access trials going on around the
country. Although many of the solutions don’t currently involve Mac solutions, at
least one impressive offering does — the CYBERsurfer from Motorola (see Figure 16-
9). This cable “modem” is an all-in-one solution that cable companies can opt to use
for cross-platform connectivity capabilities.
Figure 16-9: The Motorola CYBERSurfer
comes in versions for both Macs and
Intel-compatible PCs, making it a likely
candidate for cable companies to adopt.
(Courtesy Motorola Corp.)
Wejj^iY^ The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is keeping track of cable modem tech-
nologies at rpcp .mi t . edu/~gi ngol d/cabl e/ and the ©Home network seems to
^ be leading the charge into cable-based future at www . home .net.
Setting Up Internet Access
Once you’ve chosen your Internet technology and your hardware, you’re ready to
set up Internet access. Entire magazine articles and book chapters (in really good
books by famous Mac-loving authors) are devoted to helping you choose a service
provider, so I’ll skip that here. Once you’ve got a service provider, though, you’re
ready to head into the Mac OS to set up your Internet access — and that is
something I can help you with.
If you’ve got Mac OS 8.0 or above, you probably don’t even need to bother with this
section if you don’t want to. Instead, look on your Mac’s hard drive for a folder called
Internet, open it, and look for the Internet Setup Assistant. Run the assistant to set up
all the Internet preferences and addresses you’ll need to get online.
If you’re going to forge ahead on your own, you’ll need to gather some pretty
specific information, and then head into the Mac OS to change the appropriate
control panel settings. You also need to know a little about the technology the
Internet uses.
424 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
TCP/IP
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP ) is the AppleTalk of the
Internet. It’s simply a protocol used by the networking hardware attached to
computers sending data to one another on the Internet. The data packets need to
know where to go and how to get there so that an e-mail message 1 send from
Colorado, for instance, ends up in your e-mail program’s inbox somewhere in Peoria
or wherever the heck you live.
TCP/IP is also the name of a control panel on your Macintosh that gives you access
to a TCP/IP network — in most cases, the Internet. (Other networks can use the
TCP/IP protocol, too, to transfer information between a more limited number of
computers. These are usually called intranets, because they use the Internet
protocols, but are limited in scope.) The TCP/IP control panel is the Internet
interface for Open Transport, the Mac’s all-inclusive networking infrastructure
which allows for different types of access, like AppleTalk, TCP/IP, and others. (Older
Macs may still use the MacTCP control panel, which instead layers TCP
connectivity on top of older versions of the Mac OS.)
Your Mac knows intrinsically how to get on the Internet and talk to other
computers in the Internet language. But it doesn’t really know how it’s going to
connect and what its address will be until you step in and tell it. You also need
some other (slightly more esoteric) numbers to round out your Mac’s ability to
access Internet protocols. Figure 16-10 shows the TCP/IP control panel.
Figure 16-10: The TCP/IP control panel gives you
access to the intricacies of the Transmission Control
Protocol for Internet access.
Here are what things mean in the TCP/IP control panel (these are also the questions
you’ll need to ask your ISP, in most cases):
Chapter 16 -f Modems and Internet Access
425
♦ Connect via. Through this pull-down menu you select the method you’re
going to use for connecting to the Internet. If you’ve got an Ethernet card
designed for shared T-1 access, choose Ethernet. If you’ll be using a modem or
ISDN dial-up, choose PPP or the method recommended by your equipment
manufacturer. (Using 802.3 is recommended for most standard Ethernet
networks.)
4 Configure. This menu determines how your Internet address and other
information will be entered. If you have a PPP dial-up connection without a
fixed IP address, you’ll probably choose the option Using PPP server. Your
service provider should be able to help you choose the appropriate option if
you’re using a nonstandard connection.
♦ IP address. This is your Mac’s physical address on the Internet. Using this
address, which is made up of four groups of digits separated by periods,
anyone can gain access to anything that’s served by your Mac — data that’s
explicitly made available. That includes Web servers, FTP (file transfer)
servers, and even AppleTalk servers (if you intend to allow people to access
your computer over the Internet using AppleTalk Remote Access software). If
you’re dialing an ISP over a modem, this address may be dynamically assigned
to you, meaning you don’t have to enter it yourself.
> Subnet mask. This mask is used for Macs behind firewalls or otherwise using
internal IP addresses that aren’t individually visible on the Internet. In this
case your Mac is connected to a subnet, and gains access to the Internet
through another computer in your local network.
4 Router address. This is the IP address of the router that gives your particular
Mac its gateway to the Internet.
4- Name server address. Internet addresses are, at their lowest level, numbers
like 255.255.255.255. (Actually, they’re binary numbers like 11111111.
11111111.11111111.11111111 as far as the computers are concerned, even
though they’re translated into decimal numbers, like 256, for us — but don’t
tell non-techy people you know that. They’ll think there’s something wrong
with you.) Because people like addresses such as “www.apple.com” much
more than they like “255.255.255.255”, name-server computers (called DNS
servers) exist to match these names with their associated IP addresses. Your
local Internet service provider probably has a DNS server or two; you enter
those computer’s numbered addresses here.
If, for some unfathomable reason, you’d prefer to use a Hosts file instead of a name
server, you can select that with the Use Hosts file button, which brings up an Open
dialog box to help you locate the file. This is a text file that lists the domain name
associated with a particular IP address. Your Internet provider should offer a name
server to do this for you (because keeping up a Hosts file yourself- with hundreds of
domains being added daily— could be tedious), but you may have need to use a
Hosts file on some remote island or something. (If you use one, write me and let me
know why.) You’ll only use the other search-path parameters if you understand the
whole Hosts file things.
426 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Close the dialog box, and your setting should take. If you’re using a direct
connection (Ethernet or related), you’re done. If you’re creating a dialup
connection, you’ll need to set up PPP, too.
PPP
The PoinNO’Point Protocol (PPP) is a common method for establishing a TCP/IP
network connection over a phone line. TCP/IP is designed for direct connections —
it’s only a transmission protocol, relying on the Mac’s underlying network
infrastructure to actually talk to your Ethernet card, for instance. But even your
Mac doesn’t know how to create a TCP/IP connection using a modem. So, PPP must
be added to the mix.
PPP is also a control panel in the Control Panels folder on your Mac. Open it up and
you’ll see some basic options (see Figure 16-1 1).
Figure 16-11: The PPP control panel
enables you to hook up to a TCP/IP
network (usually the Internet) over a
phone line.
In the PPP control panel, you enter the username and password for your PPP
account (your ISP will assign these to you). You also enter the phone number your
modem is supposed to dial to access the ISP’s modem pool for gaining access to the
Internet. Click the Options button, and you’ll get a few options regarding how your
modem is dialed (whether it auto-redials, dials when you launch a Web browser,
and so on).
After setting up PPP, you need to set up your modem — with PPP control panel
active, pull down the PPP menu and choose Modem. This opens the Modem
control panel (which you can also access from the Apple menu or through other
conventional means). In the Modem control panel, you should select the modem
model you’re using for this dial-up connection.
chapter 16 4 ^ Modems and Internet Access 427
But what if your modem doesn’t show up? You then need to add an Open Transport
PPP script (OT/PPP) for your modem. The manufacturer should provide the script.
(Call their customer service department or check their Web site.) To install the
script, drag it to the Modem Scripts folder, in the Extensions folder, which in turn is
stored in the System Folder.
With all this set up, head back to the PPP control panel and click Connect. You
should hear your modem wind up, dial and connect to an answering modem at your
ISP’s site. Soon, you’ll have an active TCP/IP connection. Fire up a Web browser or
e-mail program and test it.
Telephony
Outside of modems and their fcixing capabilities, you may also want your Mac
taking over even more of your phone-related duties, whether that’s creative
handling of Caller ID information, paging, or just plain voicemail. A number of
solutions exist, even though you don’t hear much about them, that can help you in
a home or small office environment to manage your phone like you manage data.
There are two sides to adding telephony features and management to your Mac —
hardware and software. You may already have the hardware you need, although
some unique solutions exist. The software, however, is where the power really
kicks in.
Hardware solutions
Many telephony software solutions on the Mac make use of PowerPC-based Macs
and the GeoPort Telecom Adapter. As mentioned earlier, the Telecom Adapter does
more than simply act as a modem; it basically allows your Mac to interface with the
telephone. In fact, it doesn’t have to act as a modem at all. Instead, it can act as a
telephony device designed for voicemail or other pursuits. The GeoPort Telecom
Adapter hooks up to the modem port on your Mac in the same way any external
modem does.
The YoYo from Big Island Software (www . bi gi si and . com) is a personal favorite of
mine, although indications are that further development may have been
discontinued. The YoYo is a small white box that, once connected to your ADB port
for power, acts as a pass-through for your phone line and phone extension.
Features of the YoYo include the following:
428 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
4 The hardware features an LCD indicator that blinks to tell you when you have
a voicemail message. If you have voicemail through your phone company, a
stuttered dial tone is usually the indication that you have a message. YoYo
listens for this dial tone, and flashes its light when detecting it.
> The hardware is also capable of recognizing Caller ID information and paging
a predetermined pager number as calls come in, even if the Mac isn’t turned
on. The Caller ID phone number appears on the recipient’s pager along with a
code denoting that the page was sent by YoYo. For YoYo owners, it’s like
having mobile Caller ID. When the Mac is turned on, Caller ID information is
displayed on screen and can be announced with audio cues or spoken text (if
Speech Technologies are enabled for your Mac).
^ A combination of the software and hardware enables you to set certain times
when the YoYo’s extension phone won’t ring, so you’ll be undisturbed, at least
in that room.
4 The combination also helps you track and log incoming and outgoing calls
based partly on Caller ID information. This can be very helpful to
professionals and small business people who bill by the hour.
Other telephony software can make use of voicemail-capable modems and other
particular models. It’s possible that some of these companies will soon make use of
PCI cards that exist for Windows (and wouldn’t need more than driver software to
work on Mac PCI-based machines), but 1 haven’t seen any concrete indicators as of
this writing.
Software
More important than how your Mac gets connected to a phone line is how the
software handles its duties. In most cases, the software is designed to offer a more
sophisticated approach to single-line voicemail handling, although some versions
may offer multiline voicemail solutions in the future. Here are some different
software programs that handle telephony:
'f MegaPhone (Bing Software, www.bingsoftware.com/) is telephony
management software for the home and small office, giving you conferencing
features, call scheduling, call logging in a contact database, and voicemail, all
based around a GeoPort Adapter or a voicemail-enabled modem.
4- PhonePro (Bing Software) is even more extensive, allowing you to use a Mac-
based network in your office to take voicemail messages and pop them up on
the correct desktop, offer fax-back services, route calls to the correct
extension, create a voicemail hierarchy, and automatically dial the recipient’s
pager when a voicemail message is left.
chapter 16 > Modems and Internet Access 429
^ PhoneMaker (MicroMat, www . micromat. com) is a similar, full-fledged
telephony product that’s actually a visual telephony programming tool. It
allows you to create voicemail systems for your office. Implement phone mail,
auto-attendant, call-processing, fax-on-demand or integrated voice response.
> MacComCenter (Smith Micro, www. smi thmicro.com) is another more basic
fax and voice application for personal or small office use, including voicemail.
Caller ID, and paging capabilities.
Summary
4 Modems are far and away the most popular method for getting on the
Internet and signing onto online services, although they can also be used for
voicemail, as a speakerphone, or to communicate with fax machines. In
any case, choosing the right modem for your particular needs takes some
consideration of the different types of modems and the varying features they
offer.
4* In many cases you’ll install a modem using the external modem port on your
Mac, simply plugging it in, and then installing any software that came with the
modem. If you have an internal communications slot, however, you may opt to
install the modem internally, which will require opening your Mac’s case or
pulling out the logic board. You’ll then need to configure it to work correctly
over phone lines.
> If you want higher speed access to the Internet, you’ll find that more and more
options are popping up. ISDN is a reasonably popular way to double or triple
modem speeds, with xDSL technologies coming on strong in the high-speed
arena. If it’s offered in your area, cable-based Internet connections may also
be a popular alternative, through which you can use your TV’s cable
connection for high-speed Internet downloads.
^ Once you have a connection — whatever it is — you’ll need to set up your
Mac’s system software to properly deal with the Internet. In a way, it’s a basic
networking connection (just to a very large network). You’ll use the TCP/IP
and PPP control panels, in most cases, along with some important numbers
and other information you’ll need to get from your ISP or system
administrator.
4
Networking
C H
A P T E
T he Mac’s built-in and easy-to-add networking features
have made it a connected machine from very early in its
existence. Ever since somebody came up with a really good
use for Macs — desktop publishing — Mac owners have been
using LocalTalk and AppleTalk to connect their computers to
share files and offer laser printing to the entire office.
Although local networking has been around as long as UNIX
(and even longer with mainframe-type sharing of data and
applications) the Mac did a lot to popularize the idea of the
local area network (LAN), or small workgroups sharing files
and print jobs over a limited amount of space. LocalTalk, the
Mac’s first networking hardware standard, remains among the
simplest to implement and manage.
In contrast to the Mac, other computing platforms initially
made networking tough to master. Novell and Microsoft offer
extensive training courses for network administrators
designed to teach them all the nuances of a new network
operating system and a long laundry list of codes and keys to
passwords, security, permissions, and drivers. You also
needed to know quite a bit about designing a network
topology, keeping track of cable lengths, and installing devices
like hubs and routers.
Mac networks can get almost this complicated, these days;
some university campuses and professional creative agencies
have extensive Mac networks that need to be closely
managed. But, by and large, everything is a little easier for
Mac workgroups, even when using technology originally
developed for other platforms, such as Ethernet networking
and TCP/IP protocols.
Depending on your level of interest, Mac networking is
completely flexible for the task at hand. If you want to connect
two machines for basic file sharing and print sharing, that’s
easily done. If you want to connect 30 machines and a high-
end laser printer for the same tasks, this can also be
accomplished. Want to actually control the screen of another
Mac or Windows PC from across the room, the building, or
over the Internet? You can do that, too, with the right tools.
> >
In This Chapter
How networking
works
Networking Macs
together
Adding PCs to your
network
Remote networking
Adding the Internet to
your network
> 4 ^ 4 >
432 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
In this chapter, you’ll start by looking at the basics of Macintosh networking and
networking protocols. You’ll then learn how to create a network, install networking
hardware, and even add Intel-compatible PCs to the mix. Later, I’ll talk about
other cool productivity tricks such as adding Internet access, remote networking,
and more.
Mac Networking Technologies
In networking, you have three major issues to worry about. One is the type of
hardware being used to connect the computers. This includes expansion cards,
cabling, connectors, and terminators, but depends mostly on the overall
technology that’s used for the hardware. In the Mac’s case, that’s generally one of
two cabling schemes: Ethernet or LocalTalk. A third scheme. Token Ring, is based on
a proprietary IBM standard that had a brief flare of popularity, but is no longer
widely used. You’re unlikely to find Token Ring hardware for Macs any more,
although you’ll occasionally come across odds and ends for upgrading purposes.
The second issue you need to worry about is the networking protocol — the
software commands — used to route data from one place to another. It’s interesting
to note that, in spite of a mouthful of confusing names, the topology of a network
and the networking protocol being used are really unrelated. In general, you can use
any topology (for example, Ethernet) with any networking protocol (for example,
AppleTalk) that the Mac supports. In fact. Open Transport, the Mac’s underlying
networking technology, makes this even easier.
For most folks, the networking protocol choices will be threefold: AppleTalk,
TCP/IP, or Novell NetWare. (The Point-to-Point Protocol can also be included in this
list, although it’s usually simply used to create a network connection for one of the
other protocols over phone lines or other networking options such as ISDN.) Even
more generally, AppleTalk will be your most likely choice for workgroup settings, as
it’s the protocol around which Macintosh networking has been built. If your
workgroup is primarily Mac-based, you’ll probably use AppleTalk to connect the
Macs, and then use other protocols to add Intel-compatible PCs or applications for
accessing Novell and Windows NT server computers. If your office has mostly Intel-
compatible PCs, your Mac is going to have to be a better citizen than usual, most
likely running NetWare for speaking to DOS-based network servers, or AppleTalk for
accessing a Windows NT server that’s friendly to Macs.
The third issue? The topology of your network, or the pattern in which your
network is laid out, is an important consideration. In a bus topology, each computer
is connected to the next in turn, with the cable ending on each end of the network,
usually with hardware terminators. This topology is most common for LocalTalk
connections. In a ring (or token ring) configuration, the network loops back on
Chapter 17 ^ Networking 433
itself, and the last computer is connected to the first computer to complete the
loop. In a star topology, the network is served by a hardware hub that has a length
of networking cable running out to each individual computer. This is how most
Ethernet networks are wired together.
LocalTalk
LocalTalk is a networking architecture that’s built into every Mac. It is easy to use
and fairly flexible. It’s also pretty slow. At a maximum speed of about 230 Kbps,
LocalTalk is designed more for occasional file and print sharing in very small
offices. A 1MB file, for instance, takes about 30 seconds to transfer over a LocalTalk
network, making it the wrong solution for large workgroups of designers and artists.
LocalTalk is a fine idea for a smaller office or organization, though, especially if it
deals with smaller documents and has few workstations. In fact, as discussed in
Chapter 15, you’ll often have reason to create a LocalTalk network of only two
computers — a Mac and a PostScript printer. Remember, however, that LocalTalk
has limitations; without a repeater or hub (devices that will boost the LocalTalk
signal), you’re limited to 32 devices and 1,800 feet of cabling.
LocalTalk uses the Mac’s printer port as a networking interface, requiring a special
transceiver io chain the Macs in the workgroup together. The transceiver is a small
box with two LocalTalk ports on it and a serial cable for connecting to the printer
port. The two LocalTalk ports enable one LocalTalk cable to come in from the
previous transceiver in the chain and another cable to head out to the next Mac in
the chain.
It’s somewhat rare to have a hub or other networking device at the center of your
LocalTalk network; instead, like a SCSI chain, Macs are all connected to one other to
create a LocalTalk connection. At the last Mac on either end of the LocalTalk chain,
a terminator is installed in the open LocalTalk port on the first and last transceiver
to signify the end of the network. (As noted earlier, this is a bus topology.)
LocalTalk connections are usually accomplished using one of two types of cable —
either standard LocalTalk cabling or PhoneNet cabling. A LocalTalk cable looks a lot
like a typical Mac serial cable, except it only has 3-pin connectors, and it’s only
designed to connect between LocalTalk transceivers. The transceivers, in turn,
connect to the Mac via a typical serial cable connector (as shown in Figure 17-1).
You’ll also occasionally find a third type of network "wiring" — an IRTalk transceiver
that enables your Mac to communicate with the network using its wireless infrared
(IR) port, as appears on many newer PowerBooks. Farallon (www . f a ra 1 1 on . com/)
makes the AirDock transceivers for this purpose.
434 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
Figure 17-1: LocalTalk transceiver and LocalTalk cabling
The problem with the typical LocalTalk connectors and cabling is they tend to
come unattached pretty easily — a circumstance that can be frustrating if you’re
managing more than one or two computers. The solution to this problem was
created in the late 1980s by the networking solutions company, Farallon. Called
PhoneNet, this LocalTalk cabling solution uses regular phone wire (with RJ-1 1
connectors) to connect between special PhoneNet transceivers. Not only is this
a bit less expensive and easier to string than the thicker, heavier LocalTalk cable,
but PhoneNet connectors tend to lock together and stay connected. One
disadvantage: PhoneNet limits your network to about 24 devices.
PhoneNet is probably more common than regular LocalTalk cabling, and it’s now
made by a number of manufacturers. Even Apple has sold PhoneNet cabling and
transceivers. Figure 17-2 shows a PhoneNet connector.
Some phone wiring (the jacks and wiring in the walls of your home or office) is actu-
ally capable of handling two lines over a single connector; all you need is a Line
1/Line 2 modular adapter. If your home or office is wired in this manner, and you’re
not using that second line, you can use the phone wiring for PhoneNet connections,
too, because these connections use phone wiring and RJ-11 connectors. Instantly,
your office or home is wired for a network.
Chapter 17 Networking 435
Figure 17-2: PhoneNet wiring is a little easier to install, and the
connectors tend to stay firmly in place.
Ethernet
The standard on many computing platforms, Ethernet is easily the most popular
way to network computers together. Ethernet is inexpensive to add to a computer,
it’s fast (either 10 Mbps or 100 Mbps, depending on the network’s equipment) and
it’s well supported by networking protocols. Perhaps best of all, Ethernet is built
into many popular Mac models (see Table 17-1).
Table 17-1
Ethernet Options for Major Mac Models
Model
Ethernet Connector
Ethernet Upgrade Options
Classic Macs (Mac SE and newer)
N/A
PDS card
Mac II series
N/A
NuBus card
LC series
N/A
PDS card
Performa series
N/A
PDS or comm slot card
Performa 5400, Power Mac
5400, 5500, 4400
lOBaseT
Comm slot
Performa 6110 series
AAUI
NuBus
(continued)
436 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Table 17-1 (continued)
Model
Ethernet Connector
Ethernet Upgrade Options
Centris/Quadra
AAUI
NuBus
Quadra 605
N/A
N/A
Quadra 630
N/A
Comm Slot
Power Mac (NuBus)
AAUI
NuBus
Power Mac 6500, 7200, 7300,
7600, 8600, 9600
lOBaseT/AAUI
PCI
Power Mac G3
lOBaseT
PCI
Power Computing
lOBaseT
PCI
Motorola StarMax 3000, 4000
N/A (optional)
PCI
StarMax 5000
lOBaseT
PCI
UMAX (J & S models)
lOBaseT
PCI
Macs that offer a lOBaseT port can accept a lOBaseT connector directly Into the
back panel of the Macintosh. Those Macs that offer an Apple Attachment Unit
Interface (AAUI) transceiver option can use an external transceiver device to add
either lOBaseT or 10Base2 (different types of Ethernet cabling) connections. Those
that offer no standard connection can have Ethernet added via an expansion card.
Standard Ethernet offers theoretical transmission limits of about 10 Mbps, although
real-world results are generally much lower than this. A 100 Mbps standard is
starting to catch on with users and administrators, resulting in a proliferation of
100 Mbps Ethernet adapters, hubs, and other equipment. Although you still aren’t
likely to reach such speeds (because of slowdowns in the OS, among other things),
you will see an impressive increase in performance as a result of moving up to 100
Mbps equipment.
Note
If your Mac doesn't offer an internal Ethernet solution, you can add Ethernet with a
SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter. Both Dayna Communications (www.dayna.com/) and
Sonic Systems (www. soni csys . com/) offer solutions for connecting to an Ethernet
network using your Mac's built-in SCSI port.
Chapter 17 -f Networking 437
Expert tip: Comm slot defined
If you have a Performa, Power Macintosh all-in-one, or another similar Mac model, you may
have a communications slot ("comm slot") port available In your Mac for conveniently
adding Ethernet capabilities or certain modem models. The problem is knowing which
comm slot you have. If you're scratching your head over how to distinguish the original
comm slot from comm slot II, Rick Voelker, owner of Voelker Research
(WWW. voekl er.com/) in Colorado Springs has the answer;
"Here's my official definition: A comm slot is a slot in which internal cards can be installed,
typically communications products such as modems or Ethernet cards. Comm slot II is the
same as above, except it's the slot found in PCI Macs, including the Power Macintosh 5260
and up. They're not interchangeable.
"So, how can you be totally sure which slot you have? If you don't trust the definition given
above, check the Apple Tech Info Library (http; //til .info.apple.com/) for a spec
sheet on the particular Mac you are researching. It will tell you which your model has.
"How do you know which kind of card you are ordering? The spec sheet for the card is the
ultimate identifier. Typically, a card will be described as a 'CS' or 'CSH' in the description."
Ethernet cabling
So, for an Ethernet network, you need the Ethernet circuitry — either built-in or on
an expansion card — and some cabling. Two major types of Ethernet cabling are
common: 10Base2 and lOBaseT.
10Base2 cabling is also called thinnet, coax, or BNC (the connector is actually a
BNC connector, but often you’ll hear the cabling referred to by its connector type).
This is usually black or gray cabling that looks a lot like the cable used to connect
a TV to cable television input or, sometimes, a VCR. 10Base2 cabling connects to a
BNC connector or a 10Base2-compatible Ethernet transceiver or card: The
transceiver features a small, round post that can accept a connection from the
BNC connector (see Figure 17-3).
Although 10Base2 is the less popular (these days) of the two types of Ethernet
cabling, it does offer one major advantage: Like LocalTalk, 10Base2 cabling can
be used to daisy chain Macs into a long line of networked computers in a bus
topology. 10Base2 doesn’t require any other hardware — such as a networking hub —
to operate. Most 10Base2 transceivers offer two BNC connectors, one for the cable
coming in and one for the cable going out. This enables you to connect to the
next Mac downstream or add a terminator if you’ve reached the end of the
networking line.
438 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
Figure 17-3: 10Base2 cabling and connector
This is good, hearty cable that’s recommended for a number of installations —
especially industrial environments, factory floors, and anywhere where you need
sturdy cable that’s resistant to electrical noise. A daisy-chain network of 10Base2
cabling can only stretch about 600 feet before problems creep in or you’re forced to
add a hub or network switch.
lOBaseT is a bit easier to work with, although it does require a special hub to
connect more than two computers to one another. lOBaseT is also commonly called
twisted pair and sometimes referred to by its connector type, RJ45. lOBaseT wiring
is very much like typical phone wiring (which is also referred to as twisted pair).
They are two different types of cable, though. Visually, the thickness and connector
are different; the lOBaseT connector is larger, and the cable overall is thicker.
Regular phone cable uses an RJl 1 connector, whereas Ethernet cabling uses an
RJ45 connector.
The hub in a lOBaseT connection is a small box into which you hook a number of
RJ45 connectors so that they can talk to one another. With the hub at the center,
then, this configuration is often referred to as a star topology because each
connection branches away from the center like the points on a star.
There are a couple of advantages to lOBaseT that deserve to be looked at:
Fault-tolerant. Because lOBaseT Ethernet requires a hub, each individual
workstation is isolated. If there’s a problem with one of the lines, it won’t
bring down the entire network like a 10Base2-based topology can (and often
does). Usually a lOBaseT network can keep running if one of the client
computers starts having trouble.
Chapter 17 4- Networking 439
4 Easy to troubleshoot. For pretty much that same reason, lOBaseT is easier to
troubleshoot. On a 10Base2 bus, a network problem can be the result of a
disconnect on any one of the lines strung between the computers, or a
problem with the Ethernet connection itself. Unfortunately, nothing points
you to the specific computer that’s causing the trouble. (In some cases you’ll
notice that downstream network connections are failing while upstream
connections aren’t, suggesting which Mac is the source of the break in the
cabling. In other cases, this won’t be as obvious.) With lOBaseT, a computer
that’s having network trouble is the problem computer, as it’s only connected
to the hub, not to a string of other computers.
4 Easy to move. When you work with 10Base2, you need to focus on how long
each segment of cable is, where the next computer is, and how you’re going to
get the cable to it. With lOBaseT, you can move a computer, and then plug it
back into the hub without worrying about where it is in relation to the other
computers.
Of course, if you have your heart set on using 10Base2, you can get hubs for it, too,
although they’re not as common.
Hubs and switches
So what, exactly, are these hubs? Hubs arc boxes that offer ports for Ethernet
cabling and indicators that tell you (at a basic level) what’s going on with your data.
Hubs range from low-end, small-business-oriented models that have a few ports to
those with many ports and modular designs destined to be linked together.
Although hubs generally use lOBaseT connections for most of the Ethernet cabling,
you’ll often find they offer a BNC connector for a coax cable that can link hubs
together.
Hubs come in different shapes, sizes, and levels of technical prowess. If you’re
shopping for a small business hub, a basic passive hub should work fine for ten or
fewer nodes. Here’s how the different types of hubs, scaled upward in capabilities,
compare:
4 Passive hubs. These hubs connect Ethernet cabling to form a star topology,
but don’t do anything particularly special to the data packets as they pass
through. Often, data packets are replicated onto every port in the hub and
sent to all the linked computers, where the packets are ignored by nodes for
which the data was not intended (see Figure 17-4).
4 Managed hubs. This type of hub enables an administrator to talk to it through
a software interface, picking and choosing different behaviors for each port.
The administrator can turn on and off certain ports, tunnel direct connections
between certain ports, and manage the flow of data.
440 Part II 'f Performing the Upgrade
> Switched hubs. Also just called switches, these hubs actually take note of the
data that’s being transmitted and move it to the proper port. This results in a
more expensive hub that’s capable of much more efficient networking. An
example is a switched hub with a 100 Mbps connection to a server and
switched 10 Mbps connections to each Mac. If there are ten Macs on the
switch, each could theoretically receive 10-Mbps streams of data
simultaneously. What’s better, all the data will be relevant, because it’s
addressed to that particular port.
Figure 17-4: This little passive hub is easy to set up for a smaller workgroup. Just
plug it in and add Ethernet connections.
If you’ll be using an all-Ethernet network to get your Macs working together, a hub
is definitely the right way to go, and you can change or add hubs as you upgrade
the network. It’s certainly not as tough to buy a hub as it might seem — for basic
uses a passive hub is fine. Once your network grows larger or you identify
bottlenecks (for example, a creative workgroup might need better bandwidth for
transferring digital images than the accounting department, which has low-
bandwidth needs), you can add managed and switched hubs.
Look for a manufacturer that offers an easy-to-grasp modular approach to adding
hubs, as well as one that can help you understand and add other technologies, like
routers for Internet access or bridges for crossing over to another network
topology.
chapter 17 Networking 441
What's a router and a bridge, anyway'
For the record, I don't consider myself particularly slow. But this router thing has been driv-
ing me nuts for as long as I've been involved in computing. What is a router? Why would
you need a router? I asked and read and wondered, and still couldn't quite figure it out
After years of pounding my head against the wall, I think I've finally hit on the simplistic,
understandable answer to what a router does.
In a nutshell, a router is smart hardware designed to filter data coming from one network
and forward it to another network. Like a bridge, a router has the potential to take data
from one network architecture and move it onto another network architecture. (A bridge
might be used to get a LocalTalk and an Ethernet network to share AppleTalk data packets.)
The router is smarter than a bridge, though, because it can tell what a data packet is for and
send it along in the right direction.
If you're a business and educational user or administrator, you'll want to know if you need
a router for Internet access. The answer is yes, you do need that router ... at least some-
where— if not your office, then in your building, your company, or your ISP. After all, you've
got to grab the data packets of the Internet backbone and direct them toward your organi-
zation somehow. (I'll discuss Internet access for LANs later in the chapter.)
Otherwise, you only require routers when data packets need to find their way efficiently
around larger networks -such as those on large school campuses or in corporations and
organizations. At that point, routers become part of a larger scheme of Inter-networking-
taking smaller LAN networks (or workgroups) and getting them to talk together in a Wide
Area Network (WAN, or internet). Somehow the data has to know when to jump off the
local network In search of its destination on another network. That's what a router is for.
Open Transport
If youVe got a PowerPC or 68040-based Macintosh with Mac OS 7.6 or higher, you’re
running Open Transport. (You can get Open Transport to run on Macs running
Mac OS 7.5 or higher, but you’ll need to download it from Apple’s Support site at
WWW. appl e . com/support/.) Open Transport is the basic networking technology
found in the lowest levels of the Mac OS; all other networking is based on Open
Transport.
It may help to think of Open Transport as the QuickTime-like technology of Mac
networking. Remember how QuickTime is able to take many types of files and file
formats and then bring them all together on a Mac to create a single multimedia
movie? That’s sort of what Open Transport does for Macs in reverse; it speaks a
single networking language to the Mac OS, but then uses different networking
protocols — AppleTalk, TCP/IP — to talk to the outside world. This approach not
only makes the Mac multilingual for flexibility on the Internet, it also makes it easier
to set up networking service on your Mac without getting a master’s degree on the
subject.
442 Part II Performing the Upgrade
From your Mac’s viewpoint, Open Transport is a series of shared libraries stored in
the Extensions folder providing programmers access to the AppleTalk and TCP/IP.
On most modern Macs, you’ll need to have these libraries (and other Open
Transport files) installed properly for networking to work.
AppleTalk
AppleTalk is far and away the most popular networking protocol language for
Macintosh computers and workgroups. Although AppleTalk was and is a
proprietary Apple-owned standard, Apple has made AppleTalk’s inner workings
available for public consumption, enabling other manufacturers to write to its
specifications. As a result, AppleTalk services appear in a wide range of products,
including AppleTalk networking services built into Windows NT servers, AppleTalk
software for Windows 95 desktops, Novell network software for Macs, and even
AppleTalk connectivity for UNIX and other platforms.
Types of AppleTalk networks
Originally conceived as a client/seroer protocol, AppleTalk in the beginning was
configured so that one computer acted as a conduit for most of the communication.
On that server computer, shared files were stored and accessed by the individual
client Macs used by the rest of the workgroup. The server computer was also
responsible for handling the printer services for each Mac. When a Mac wanted to
print, it asked the print server to put its print request in a queue.
The server software for a client/server AppleTalk network is called AppleShare (just
to keep things perfectly clear) and must be purchased from Apple or Apple
retailers. The AppleShare IP server software runs on one particular Mac In the
office, which serves files and allows access to the printer as needed. The latest
versions of AppleShare IP feature Web, FTP, and Internet e-mail servers as well.
With the appearance of Mac System 7.0 (Mac OS 7.0 in today’s parlance), that
client/server requirement changed somewhat. Although large offices and
workgroups that require strong printing capabiiities will often use AppleShare, a
new level of networking, called peer-fo-peer networking, was included in the System
software. Also known as Personal File Sharing, this system allows Macs to talk to
one another without using a server computer as a go-between. In essence, every
Mac on the network is both a server and a client, enabling network users to log into
one another’s computers and share files in that way (see Figure 17-5).
Chapter 17 Networking 443
4‘m,
\
Figure 17-5: With only a few Macs in our office,
I can use Personal File Sharing to share files with
one or more of them.
Along with this capability came Printer Sharing, a technology that allows an
individual Mac to share its direct-connected printer with the rest of the AppleTalk
network. With Printer Sharing turned on, the shared printer simply shows up in the
Chooser on any Macs that are part of the network.
The current AppleTalk implementation is actually called AppleTalk Phase 2 because it
extends the original AppleTalk specification conceived for the original Mac models.
Through Phase 2, more Macs can be connected to a particular network at once, and
data can be routed from one smaller network to another so that a number of differ-
ent networks can communicate with one another.
AppleTalk addresses
AppleTalk is a packet-based networking protocol that sends data between
computers in the form of individual electronic messages. Large files will be broken
down into smaller packets, each of which has both an originating and destination
address. The packets manage to find their way to a specific computer because each
node (Mac, PC, laser printer, and so on) on an AppleTalk network is given an
address, or a series of numbers that uniquely identify it on the network. These
addresses are assigned dynamically, meaning no individual has to sit at a particular
Mac and assign the addresses to each computer. Instead, Macs assign themselves
the addresses when they first sign onto the network.
When a Mac becomes active on a network, it chooses a networking number and
polls the other computers to find out if that number is already taken. If it’s not, the
Mac assigns itself the number; if it is, it starts the process of choosing and polling
all over again.
444 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
The AppleTalk addressing scheme consists of three different numbers: a network
number, a node number and a socket number. These three numbers uniquely
identify not only each Mac, PC, and printer on a given AppleTalk network, but also
each network. That makes it possible for the networks to communicate with one
another, usually through special hardware called routers.
Because Mac designers and programmers rarely like to have users looking at raw
numbers and bizarre addressing schemes, they came up with the concept of
AppleTalk zones. A zone is really just a network with a particular network number.
In general, these zones are separated by router hardware, which enables them to
communicate with one another, but still maintain a certain separation. For example,
say a systems administrator in a company was trying to decide how to implement a
computer network. This would give everybody the ability to exchange e-mail
messages and files. However, there might not be much point in having a situation
where someone in the accounting department accidentally prints documents to the
creative department’s printers. So, the system administrator might want to assign
the various departments to separate zones to keep users in one zone from seeing
the printer servers of another zone in their Mac’s Chooser (unless those users
specifically choose that other zone). The system administrator could even restrict
users from accessing a particular zone, or require a password for a new zone, just
so that everything remains orderly.
Signing on
To activate AppleTalk services for your Mac, you first need to be properly
configured on the network using either LocalTalk or Ethernet hardware and cabling.
You then use the AppleTalk control panel (in Mac OS 7.6 and later) to choose which
cabling will be used for your AppleTalk connection (see Figure 17-6). After choosing
a topology, the Mac will check to make sure everything is in working order. It’ll then
turn on AppleTalk networking for you.
Earlier versions of the Mac OS rely on a control panel called Network, which does
basically the same thing as the AppleTalk control panel, but looks more like the
Chooser (it has icons you click instead of a pull-down menu).
Figure 17-6: Use the AppleTalk control
panel to choose your networking
topology.
Chapter 17 -f Networking 445
If you’ve already visited the AppleTalk control panel in the past, your main base of
operations for AppleTalk networking will be the Chooser. In the Chooser, you can
turn AppleTalk on and off, and you can click the AppleShare icon to see what file
volumes are available to you (if you’re using AppleShare client/server software)
or what other Macs can be accessed (if you’re on the Personal File Sharing peer-
to-peer approach).
You can also choose the AppleTalk zone in which you’d like to look for servers and
file volumes, and you can enter an IP address for accessing an AppleShare IP server
over the Internet (see Figure 17-7).
Figure 17-7: The Chooser is at the heart of most
Mac networking decisions.
To access a particular hard drive from the Chooser, start by clicking the AppleShare
icon, and then double-clicking the volume or computer name that appears in the
right-hand window. The Mac responds with a dialog box that asks you to enter your
name and password. If you pass muster, the drives are mounted, and they appear
on your desktop.
File sharing
What if you want to set up your computer as a server? This is especially important
in a peer-to-peer network, where people want to access different folders and drives
from different people’s Macs. To do that, you need to turn on Personal File Sharing.
Head to the Control Panels entry in your Apple menu (or the Control Panels folder
in your System Folder), and you’ll find the File Sharing control pcinel. Open it to
reveal settings for file sharing.
446 Part II Performing the Upgrade
File sharing is pretty straightforward. You need to give the Mac an owner’s name, a
password, and a computer name — the name that will appear in the Choosers of
other Macs on the network. Next, hit the Start button to start up file sharing. After a
few moments, file sharing is active (see Figure 17-8).
The File Sharing control panel also includes a control for Program Linking, through
which you access certain types of programs and documents on another computer on
the network. You might use this to get data from a word processing document on
another computer to insert into a spreadsheet, for instance, or for remote shutdown
of a computer. Programs have to be specifically designed to use Program Linking. If
the programs are designed to use it, though. Program Linking needs to be turned on
in the File Sharing control panel.
Figure 17-8: The File Sharing control panel gives
you control over whether or not your hard drive
is available over an AppleTalk network.
You still have to do a few more things to finish the setup, though. AppleTalk relies
on the Sharing setting to set permission for who can access files and folders across
the network. You need to head over to the folder that you want shared, highlight it,
and then choose File <> Sharing from the Finder’s menu. In the Sharing Setup dialog
box, you can set the permission from each individual user or group of users to
whom you want to grant access to this drive. The various permission levels include
the following:
•f Read access. The user can copy the file to their own hard drive or load it in its
associated application, but the user can’t overwrite the file on your hard
drive. He or she also can’t save new files in the folder.
> Write access. The user can copy a file to your hard drive, but he or she can’t
examine the contents (the filenames) of the folder. Apple calls this a drop box
because it allows users to drop off files for you to examine and use, and he or
she can’t see what anyone else has dropped in the directory.
Chapter 17 -f Networking 447
Read and Write access. In this case, the user has full use of the directory just
as if they were using the same physical Mac to access it. He or she can view,
load, and replace files on the drive.
4* None. This option dictates that the user or group in question has no rights for
viewing, write to, or overwriting the contents of a folder.
Of course, you’ll need to set up the users and groups, which is accomplished
through another control panel called, remarkably enough, Users and Groups. In this
control panel, you create new users who are allowed access to your Mac, assigning
them names and passwords. You can then attach them to groups of individuals who
have the same permissions to access folders and files on your hcird drive. You can
limit a certain group to the Documents folder, for instance, or only give them access
to one of your hard drives (if you have more than one). Figure 17-9 shows the Users
and Groups control panel.
Figure 17-9: Create new users
and groups in this control panel,
and then head out in the Finder to
set the permissions for folders and
drives in the Finder.
AppleShare IP
If you plan to run a larger workgroup of Macs, AppleShare IP may be more your
speed. This is the client/server solution to networking with Macs. It runs on top of
the Mac OS, but turns a Mac into a complete workgroup server solution — basically
taking over the computer (in most cases) and centralizing many of the networking
issues and tasks that are usually distributed among many computers using a typical
file sharing setup.
The most recent versions of AppleShare IP offer a number of different servers in
one package, including the following:
^ Rle server. Create a shared directory of files and folders where the entire
network can store and retrieve data.
448 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
-f Printer server. Manage one or more network printers for an entire
workgroup, including queuing print jobs and assigning priorities.
♦ Web server. Built into AppleShare IP is the ability to serve Web pages over
the Internet. The server features a special folder for Web pages, Common
Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts for interactive pages, and tools for logging
Web activity.
4 E>maii server. This component enables access to both internal and Internet-
based e-mail for the workgroup. If an Internet domain name has been assigned
to the server computer, it can be used to create and manage unique Internet e-
mail addresses, such as “bob@yourcompany.com”, that can be assigned to
each member of the workgroup.
4 FTP server. Allows users on the Internet to upload and download files from
your AppleShare server.
AppleShare IP offers other interesting features, such as network management tools
for the network administrator to use that are also pretty simple to master because
theyVe based on familiar concepts like the Users and Groups control panel.
AppleShare IP also features an extensible architecture that allows the network to
expand as your needs grow. You can add an armload of third-party options for
everything from managing traffic on the network to logging Web hits and adding
Windows 95 clients to your network.
AppleShare IP is a complete set of protocols, add-ons, and applications for a Mac
server that can't be done justice here. Visit www.apple.com/appleshareip for
" information on the server software, performance statistics, add-ons, third-party soft-
ware, and other information.
Evangelista tip: Server misconceptions
Think you want to move up to an AppleShare network, but afraid you can't afford a big and
fast enough server computer? Scott Barber of SOHO Macintosh News and Tips (www.mac-
times.com/soho/) sees things a bit differently:
"One of the common misconceptions that IS managers face is that to have an office file
sen/er a monstrous 256MB Apple Workgroup G3 server with a 40GB RAID hard drive is the
minimum. Fortunately, this is not the case; a computer needs only a lOMHz bus to transfer
data at full lOBaseT Ethernet speeds, and file sen/ing only requires one dedicated process.
"Given that 68000 and 68030 machines don't multitask well but perform single tasks with
ease, assigning one of these machines the task of being a file server requires only adequate
hard drive and memory. Often these slow machines can handle file serving for 10 to 20 net-
worked machines just as quickly as a G3 sen/er could, especially for the small business
office. Other sen/ices, such as Web serving, e-mail, and peripheral servers and bridges, are
just as simple and efficient. Creating servers for small LANs, or home offices, is as easy as
opening your closet and powering up your old Mac II."
Chapter 1 7 -f Networking 449
NetWare for Mac
Novell’s NetWare remains the standard means for networking in many businesses
and organizations around the world, especially those that have standardized on
DOS and Windows network-server solutions. NetWare is actually an operating
system all to itself, focused on serving files, serving applications, and handling
printers. The Mac can hook up to a server running NetWare using a special client
add-on (NetWare for Macintosh) offered for free by Novell from its Web site
(WWW. novel 1 . com).
The software makes it possible for Mac users to browse NetWare file volumes, copy
data from them, write data to them, and print to Novell print queues. NetWare
services are added to your Chooser, allowing you to choose NetWare volumes and
print queues.
Interestingly, one aspect of the NetWare client tends to get around more than many
others, even on home and small-office machines — the MacIPX control panel. In
fact, if you’re much of a gamer, you may not be surprised; MacIPX is a popular way
to add networkability to a Mac game, especially if it’s capable of interoperating with
the Intel-compatible version of the same game. Because IPX is a popular networking
standard in the DOS/Windows world, it’s popular for head-to-head gaming, too.
Setting Up the Network
Designing a network can require a little forethought and planning to make sure
everything goes smoothly; this is especially true if you’ll be using either a LocalTalk
or a 10Base2 Ethernet network. In these cases, where you’re installing a network
without a hub, it’s important to take a close look at how your office (or home) is
laid out, how far away from one another the computers are, and how much cable
length you’ve taken up.
Remember, LocalTalk limits you to about 32 devices (24 with PhoneNet cabling) and
1,800 feet of cable. 10Base2 can connect an unlimited number of devices (theoreti-
cally) but can only stretch about 600 feet without a hub or switch.
The other major consideration is speed. In fact, the whole LocalTalk versus
Ethernet decision is a speed and convenience tradeoff. LocalTalk is less expensive
to implement, works well with most Apple-brand printers, and enables you to
network just about anything Mac-related for the cost of a transceiver and some
phone cord. In some ways, it may be the perfect solution for a home business or
small business.
450 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
But Ethernet is much, much faster, providing speed that could seriously affect your
productivity if you’re working with large files, printing graphical layouts, or
otherwise taxing your network. And, if you have Ethernet built into your Macs
already, the cost of the transceivers and cabling is only about double that of
LocalTalk cabling for speeds that feel much closer to instantaneous. Of course,
you’ll have to buy Ethernet adapters for anything that doesn’t already have some
sort of Ethernet capability, or you’ll have to invest in upgrade cards for almost any
system if you’re interested in taking advantage of 100 Mbps Ethernet connections.
So, the choice is yours. Just remember to consider everything you need to invest
in LocalTalk (transceivers, cabling, and so on) before choosing it over Ethernet.
You may have to make a bigger investment in Ethernet, but you’ll only have to make
it once.
Most of the system software required to use built-in Ethernet solutions — such as
LocalTalk, Ethernet (EtherTalk on older systems), and file sharing extensions -is
installed when you run the Easy Setup option in your Mac OS installer program. But,
for various reasons, you may not have all the software you need installed anymore. If
you suspect you’re missing some important networking extensions, check Chapter 27
for hints and help.
Installing a LocalTalk network
If you’re going to be working with LocalTalk, it’s easy enough to get started setting
up the network. First, take a good look around the office, measuring the distances
between each Mac so you can get the right number and lengths of cabling. Count to
see how many transceivers you’re going to need — one for each Mac. Don’t forget to
make sure you have transceivers for your printers, if they’ll be used on the
network. Also, you’ll need LocalTalk terminators, one for each end of the chain of
LocalTalk connectors.
So where do you get all this stuff? A number of companies have dedicated
themselves to LocalTalk solutions, including those shown in Table 17-2.
Want a quick and simple LocalTalk connection between two Macs? You won't get
optimum performance with this setup, but you can transfer files by simply connecting
a serial cable to each of the Macs' printer ports, and then turn on AppleTalk and file
sharing. Now, log into one or the other of the computers, and transfer everything you
need. It's a simple way to synchronize a PowerBook and a desktop -or transfer old
data to a new Mac— but it only works for two machines at one time.
Chapter 1 7 4- Networking 451
Table 17-2
LocalTalk Cabling and Solutions Manufacturers
Company
Products
Web site
Farallon
Transceivers, hubs, routers
WWW. faral 1 on.com
Netspan
Hubs, routers
www.netspan.com
Transware
Routers, sharing solutions
www.transware.com
Webster Computer
Routers, hubs
www.webstercc.com
Sonic Systems
Routers, bridges
www.sonicsys.com
Dayna Communcations
Transceivers, hubs, bridges
WWW. dayna .com
Basic installation
Here’s how to install a LocalTalk transceiver and cabling on a Mac:
1. Shut down the Mac and ground yourself.
2. Plug the transceiver into the printer port.
3. Plug the LocalTalk or PhoneNet cabling into one of the transceiver ports (it
doesn’t matter which).
4. If this is the end of the network, plug a terminator into the other port. If the
network continues on, plug the next length of LocalTalk or PhoneNet cabling
into the transceiver.
5. Turn the Mac back on.
Do this for the rest of your network, making sure you’re always continuing a chain
of wiring from Mac to Mac and not doubling back or leaving any Macs out the loop.
(1 have seen both happen, even in carefully planned networks.) Next, you’re ready
to set up each Mac on the network.
To set up the software for network access in Mac OS 7.6 and above, follow
these steps:
1. Open the AppleTalk control panel.
2. If AppleTalk isn’t already turned on (in the Chooser), the Mac will ask you if
you want it turned on. Choose OK.
3. In the AppleTalk control panel, choose Printer Port (assuming that’s the port
you used) from the Connect via: menu.
4. Close the control panel.
452 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
You should be up and running on the network. If you have other Macs connected
(and they have file sharing turned on), you can open the Chooser and click the
AppleShare icon to see if they show up. If they do, youVe successfully connected.
If you're using a Mac OS version before 7.6, you'll find the choice for LocalTalk in the
Network control panel. You may need to restart your Mac for the change in network
cabling to take effect. You may also need to manually turn on AppleTalk in the
Chooser.
LocalTalk hubs
Although they’re not as popular or easy to find as Ethernet hubs, LocalTalk hubs
can be useful for networks that require a lot of distance between Macs, or any
LocalTalk network where you’re sick of cables coming loose and network services
becoming unavailable to your workgroup. A LocalTalk hub acts as a go-between for
each Mac, centralizing control of the network in one unit with diagnostic
capabilities and tools to help you manage individual connections. Using a star
configuration, this cuts out the possibility that any single dropped connection or
bad wire could bring down the rest of the network.
This does two things: First, it sets you up for managing larger LocalTalk networks
more efficiently so you can find breaks in the system and add new Macs to the
network quickly and easily. The hub will also manage traffic for you more efficiently,
gathering data packets and sending them to the right Mac, instead of sending them
down a long cable and through many connections before the packets find the right
Mac. It also cuts down on collisions and slowdowns caused by data meeting in the
middle and being rerouted by each Mac.
If you’re managing a large number of LocalTalk-networked computers, you don’t
have to hook them all up to a hub; you can use a hub to centralize connections for
smaller networks of 10 to 15 Macs. That way the router can manage traffic between
the different daisy-chained networks. This makes a large LocalTalk network work
well without requiring expensive hubs that connect every single Mac. It also cuts
down on the number of Macs that can be affected by a cabling problem.
LocalTalk bridges
So what happens if you’re heavily invested in LocalTalk transceivers and
connectors, but you need access to an Ethernet network, either for your newer Mac
or to access the Internet? In that case, you need a LocalTalk bridge — a hardware or
software solution that connects Ethernet and LocalTalk. Because both types of
network architectures can handle AppleTalk, you’ve already got that part covered.
Now you just need to translate LocalTalk into Ethernet.
Using hardware, you just hook your last LocalTalk connection into the bridge and
do the same with your Ethernet connection. (If you’re using an Ethernet hub, you
just connect an Ethernet cable between the hub and the bridge as if the bridge were
another Mac.) Some of these bridges can handle three or more LocalTalk networks,
Chapter 17 -f Networking 453
connecting them all to an Ethernet network (providing TCP/IP services, for
instance, if your office building is wired for Internet access).
Other bridges are small devices, perhaps designed to accept one LocalTalk
connection on one side and an Ethernet connection on the other side. Don’t let
this simplicity fool you, though. The microBridge from Sonic Systems, for instance,
allows a 12-node LocalTalk network to connect to an Ethernet network using the
tiny device (see Figure 17-10). The Tribestar IP from Zoom Telephonies, Inc.
(www.zoomtel .com/) is an interesting hybrid; it’s actually a switching hub between
LocalTalk and Ethernet, essentially bridging the networks by turning up to eight
LocalTalk connections into a virtual Ethernet connection. With smart packet
switching, it can increase the speeds of the LocalTalk to Ethernet connection.
You’ll also find bridges on the user market that were manufactured by Adaptec
(www.adaptec.com) and Cayman Systems (www.cayman.com), among other
companies.
Figure 17-10: The microBridge from Sonic Systems (www.sonicsys.com) connects a
small LocalTalk workgroup — or a collection of eMate computers — to an Ethernet
network.
454 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
The last type of bridge is implemented completely in software. For some time Apple
has offered the Apple LocalTalk Bridge, through which a single Macintosh (even an
aging classic Mac or Mac II) can act as a bridge between Ethernet and LocalTalk,
accepting connections from both and translated between the two. The Apple
LaserWriter Bridge also enables LocalTalk to Ethernet connections, but only for
LaserWriter printers. (The Apple Internet Router, part of the Apple Internet
Gateway package, can bridge Ethernet and LocalTalk.) Other packages from
manufacturers such as Sonic Systems and Vicom Technology
(WWW. vi comtech . com) do much the same thing (see Figure 17-11).
Figure 17-11: Bridge software, also from Sonic Systems, allows a Mac to act as a
LocalTalk-to-Ethernet bridge.
chapter 1 7 -f Networking 455
Don't let the terminology fool you. Remember that a router, in some cases, can act as
a more intelligent bridge. Routers are designed to move data packets to a new net-
work, but they can also be used to move those data packets to a new network archi-
tecture, too.
Installing an Ethernet network
With Ethernet, things can be a bit more complex. First, you’ll need to decide what
type of cabling you’re going to use: 10Base2 (coax) or lOBaseT (twisted-pair). Next,
you’ll need to find out what Ethernet capabilities your Macs have, what capabilities
need to be added, and what cable lengths you need for the Ethernet cabling. If you’re
using 10Base2, you’ll need to focus on the daisy-chain aspects of networking — how
close are the computers, what’s the logical order, and so on. With lOBaseT, you’ll
need to get a hub.
There is one exception to the rule that lOBaseT cabling needs a hub: EthenA/ave
transceivers from Farallon (v/ww. faral 1 on .com). These transceivers attach to the
AAUI Ethernet port and use lOBaseT wiring, but they each have two ports that enable
you to daisy-chain the connections between Macs instead of using a central hub.
They're more expensive than standard transceivers, because they act as mini-
repeaters that boost a twisted-pair signal well enough for it to work without a hub.
If you’re using built-in Ethernet that includes a lOBaseT connector, or you’re using
an Ethernet add-on card that uses either 10Base2 or 10Base2, all you need to do is
connect the wiring properly:
-f With a lOBaseT connection you simply plug the RJ45 plug into the transceiver,
card, or built-in lOBaseT port.
> For a 10Base2 connection, you’ll need to push the BNC connector onto one of
the two posts extending from the transceiver or card. Once the connector is
fitted over the post, twist it clockwise to lock it onto the connection. If this is
the end of the network, attach a BNC terminator to the other post. If the
network continues on, connect another length of cable to the other post.
Many Macs with built-in Ethernet require a transceiver to connect them to a
network (Apple calls the port that accepts a transceiver the AAUI port).
Transceivers are available for both coax and twisted-pair cabling. With the right
transceiver in hand, you can add that Mac to the network:
1. Shut down the Mac and electrically ground yourself.
2. Attach the transceiver to the AAUI port. To do this, line the transceiver’s AAUI
adapter up with the port, and then squeeze the sides. Push the adapter onto
the port and release the sides to lock it into place.
456 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
3. Attach the cabling to the transceiver as discussed above.
4. Restart your Mac.
If you’re ready to set this Mac up on the network (if it’s plugged into the lOBaseT
hub or your 10Base2 network is completely set up with terminators on either end),
you can start up AppleTalk:
1. Open the AppleTalk control panel.
2. If AppleTalk isn’t already turned on (in the Chooser), the Mac will ask you if
you want it turned on. Choose OK.
3. In the AppleTalk control panel, choose Ethernet from the Connect via: menu.
4. Close the control panel.
You may have an entry that’s slightly different from “Ethernet” such as “Ethernet
(Cl)” or something similar, especially if you’ve installed an Ethernet card or your
Mac came preconfigured with an Ethernet card. In that case, choose that entry. (If
you have two entries, you may have both built-in Ethernet and an Ethernet card.
Choose the one you’ve attached to the network.)
Note
X
If youTe using a Mac OS version before 7.6, you'll find the choice for Ethernet or
EtherTalk in the Network control panel. You may need to restart your Mac for the
change in network cabling to take effect. You may also need to manually turn on
AppleTalk in the Chooser.
Expert tip: Don't put a filing cabinet on your cabling
IS professional Jim Cox from Vancouver, BC, Canada used a little networking troubleshoot-
ing savvy to track down a rather unique problem with a Macintosh network. Although you
may not have the same exact experience, hopefully there's something to learn in here:
"A few years ago, I was the IS director of what the editor of Health Care Magazine called
'the only all-Mac hospital on the face of the planet, maybe in the universe.' It was an old
building, and we were constructing a new one so it was not worth installing the network
inside the walls. We just used surface mount outlet boxes and built AppleTalk backbones by
running a cable from box to box and office to office along the base of the wall. A rear-
rangement of one secretary's office resulted in the wall box being moved and about 10 feet
of slack in the cable. The maintenance guys just coiled up the cable and stuffed it behind
her filing cabinet.
(continued)
Chapter 17 -f Networking 457
(continued)
"Some months later, I started getting complaints from users that their Macs would some-
times drop off the network for a few seconds up to several minutes. Because the fault was
so intermittent, we were never able to track it down. Then one day, we got a rash of com-
plaints. We started checking and discovered that everyone upstream from that secretary
was okay and everyone downstream was dead. When we went to her office we found her
with her filing cabinet open doing a major reorganization. As we were tracing the wiring,
she closed the drawer and a user immediately reported that she was back online. We dis-
covered that every time we opened the drawer the network died and when we closed it the
network sprang to life again. Magic?
"What had happened was that over the months, the filing cabinet had been moved a bit
and was now resting on top of the network cable. It had apparently broken a wire inside
the cable. If the drawer was closed, the pressure caused the wire ends to connect. With it
open, they would disconnect We removed the cable from under the file cabinet, spliced
out the excess and the network ran on blissfully until the building was retired.
'The moral of the story: Take care of your cables."
Installing the hub
With most Ethernet hubs, there really isn’t much to the installation process. In most
cases, you can simply plug the hub into the wall, and then start using the ports on
the front to attach lOBaseT connections coming from your Macs. If you’re
connecting hubs to one another (to connect to other Ethernet networks or to your
orgcinization’s Internet connection), you can use the uplink port on the hub, if you
see one. Otherwise, any of the ports should work fine.
Ethernet switches work pretty much the same way. Plug them in, turn them on, and
connect the Ethernet cables to them. Some of the popular small office switches,
however, may feature different ports for different tasks — for example, an uplink
port reserved for connecting to another hub or switch and fast Ethernet ports for
100 Mbps connections (see Figure 17-12).
With wiring connected to the ports, you should begin to see activity. Each port will
often have its own LEDs; one might tell you that a successful connection is in place,
whereas another tells you specifically when it’s sending packets. You may also have
indicators that show wiring errors, collisions, and slowdowns on the network.
458 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Figure 17-12: The Asante FriendlyNet switch enables my network
nodes to access the hub at 10 Mbps each, while the switch itself is
accessing the building's Internet router at 100 Mbps
(www.asante.com).
Adding a PC to the network
IVe seen figures that state as many as 80 percent of networked computers in the
world (UNIX, Mac, PC, workstations, minicomputers, mainframes) are using
Ethernet. That’s a pretty pervasive standard, as well as being a convenient one. It
means that accessing an Intel-compatible PC over a typical Mac-oriented Ethernet
network is nothing more than a matter of software. And, often enough, software
problems are easy to overcome.
In fact, hubs, routers, and switches usually don’t caire what sort of computer you’re
running. In many cases, they don’t care what sort of data you’re using (some do —
especially routers). So, it’s easy enough to take a PC and hook it up to your
Ethernet hub, and then add the right software to enable it to access the network.
The software you need adds AppleTalk services to a Windows or Windows 95 PC —
one such program is called COPStalk from COPS, Inc. (www. copstal k . com). This
software allows a PC to connect to an AppleShare server or computer with
AppleTalk Personal File Sharing. The drives and printers available on an AppleTalk
network are then made available to the Windows machine through the File Manager
or Windows Explorer.
Chapter 17 -f Networking 459
COPS, Inc., also offers LocalTalk cards for PCs, which enable the PC to
communicate with an Apple LocalTalk network or connect directly to LocalTalk
printers. The cards can also be used by Novell network or Windows NT server
computers to provide services to Mac LocalTalk networks.
PC MACLAN from Miramar Systems (v/ww.mi ramarsys.com) offers a similar
product that provides bidirectional support for Windows/Mac OS networking. The
software gives AppleTalk services to Windows that work in both directions; Macs
see the Windows machine as part of the AppleTalk network, just as the Windows
machine can see the Mac networking. It actually installs on the Windows machine,
giving it a newly found ability to access AppleTalk networks. Nothing has to change
on your Mac machines to get them to work with the Intel-compatible PC.
Hooking a Mac into a PC network
Although MACLAN and COPStalk both offer solutions that hook PCs up to Mac
networks, you’ll need a different program to get your Mac to act as a node on a
Windows 95 peer-to-peer network. Called DAVE (from Thursby Software Systems,
WWW .thursby . com), this program runs on the Mac and gives it Windows-like
networking services and protocols. As such, it ends up working very much like PC
MACLAN, except it runs on the Mac, giving it Windows networking..
DAVE works by encapsulating NetBIOS commands (a typical PC networking
protocol) inside TCP/IP packets so that the Mac can read and write to PC file
services. The Mac ends up looking exactly like a PC to the Windows network, and
can be centrally managed by Windows-based networking administration software.
This software also makes it simple to add the DAVE-enhanced Mac to Windows
peer-to-peer setups in smaller networks.
If you have a Novell-based client/server network of PCs, you can install Novell
NetWare for Macintosh. This client software gives you access to a Novell NetWare
network served on an Intel-compatible PC.
The last choice is to install Microsoft’s Macintosh Services for Windows NT. If
your company or organization is using Windows NT as a server, the Mac can be
integrated with that server so that file and printer services appear in the Chooser.
Windows NT can also be used as an Internet router (in software) to route TCP/IP
over an AppleTalk network.
Accessing the network remotely
One other interesting capability is offered by some Apple networking tools.
Apple Remote Access, a software package from Apple, allows Macs to log into an
AppleTalk network via modem or over the Internet. This basically creates the same
network that would be available over Ethernet or LocalTalk, but uses a phone line
or TCP/IP connection instead.
460 Part II ♦ Performing the Upgrade
Apple Remote Access requires two components: the Apple Remote Access server
and the Apple Remote Access client. The client is installed with Mac OS 7.6 or
above (in most cases — you can install it manually from the System CD if
necessary) and runs on the PowerBook or other Mac that you’re going to use from
a remote location. The server software has to be purchased from Apple directly or
from an Apple retailer, and is installed on a server computer that’s part of the
physical AppleTalk network. The server also needs a modem attached for receiving
the incoming call from the client computer.
Apple offers two versions of the ARA server product:
4 Apple Remote Access Personal server is reasonably inexpensive and
provides one single connection to an AppleTalk network via modem or
Internet.
^ Apple Remote Access Multiport server enables up to 16 dial-up connections
to access a local area network at a time.
With the server software installed and ready to answer a particular modem, you
can set up the client software on your remote computer through the Remote Access
Setup control panel, telling it how to dial out, what number to use, and what port
the modem is attached to. (In version 3.0 of the client and above, you can also
choose to use a PPP connection to access the remote AppleTalk network via the
Internet.) Figure 17-13 shows the Remote Access Setup control panel.
Figure 17-13: Use the Remote Access
client to dial in over phone lines to an
AppleTalk network.
Now, to access the server, you load the Remote Access Client, a program you’ll
likely find on your hard drive in a folder called Remote Access Client. Double-click
the client to start it up, and then create a profile for the network you’re going to
access by entering your user name, password, and the phone number for the
remote computer. When you’re ready to dial out, click the Connect button. If all
goes well, you’ll connect to the remote server.
chapter 17 Networking 461
Depending on which server you’ve used (and whether the remote computer is on
an AppleTalk network with other servers), you’ll have access to the files on the
remote computer as if you logged into it over a regular AppleTalk network. If you’ll
also need to access other machines on the network, head back to the Chooser
and choose the AppleTalk icon. On the right-hand side of the Chooser window, any
servers on the remote network should be visible, and you can now log in to any
of them.
Peripheral sharing
You can use some third-party add-ons to share other items over a printer besides
printers and files, including scanners, modems, and pretty much any device that’s
connected to a port on one of the host Macs. One of the main purveyors of such
solutions is Stalker Software (www, stal ker . com/), a company well-known for its
Communigate server solutions for Web, e-mail, and other LAN-to-Internet pursuits.
For peripheral sharing. Stalker offers several specific solutions:
4- LineShare. This serial port sharing software makes all your serial devices
(modems and printers) available over the network. Through a single control
panel your Mac can be both a server and a client, making it simple for other
Macs to use peripherals connected to your Mac.
> ScanShare and SCSIShare. This software makes local scanners available to
the rest of your network. Scanshare works with Apple-specific scanners, and
SCSIShare works with other scanners.
Internet and Intranets
Although AppleTalk is easily the most prevalent networking protocol on Macs,
TCP/IP has certainly given AppleTalk a run for its money in recent years. The
TCP/IP protocol has a few things going for it, not the least of which is that the
Internet is based on it. UNIX-based networking is based on TCP/IP, too, and as the
UNIX underpinnings of OpenStep slowly make their way into the next-generation
Mac OS (perhaps through the Mac OS X [ten] edition — the Mac OS version that
melds Mac OS 8.x and the new Apple OS code-named “Rhapsody”), TCP/IP will
become even more important down the road.
TCP/IP services have been available to Macs for a long time, however, first offering
built-in access to the Internet with Mac OS 7.5, then called “System 7.5”. (It was
actually available before, but not as part of the OS.) The MacTCP control panel
used at that time is now called classic networking because it wasn’t based on Open
Transport.
462 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
These days the MacTCP control panel has been replaced with the TCP/IP control
panel, suggesting the new priority level placed on TCP/IP; it’s now an integral
part of the Mac OS. As such, it’s probably important for many Mac networks out
there, too.
With TCP/IP and a LAN, you can do one of two things. The first is to offer Internet
access to everyone on the network. Even reasonably inexpensive options abound
for doing this, including options you might want to consider for a small office or
offices in your home.
The other thing you can do is use TCP/IP internally to build an intranet, a closed
network that uses TCP/IP and Internet-type tools (such as Web servers) to
communicate company or organizational information to employees and other
participants. An intranet is a great way to share ideas between larger workgroups
of people, including features such as chat rooms, Web pages, documents for
downloading (HR forms, for instance), and other goodies.
Internet access
If you’ve got a single Mac, you’ll likely opt for a modem, ISDN, ADSL, or cable
solution like those discussed back in Chapter 16. But for a LAN, you’ll find very
quickly that you can run into problems with a system like this. For one, you may
need to have dozens of dial-up accounts and modems as well as install extra phone
lines if everyone is expected to get on the Internet in this way.
At some point, the better plan is to simply add TCP/IP services to your LAN. This
can be accomplished in a number of ways. They pretty much all rely on an Internet
router solution, but the router can take on many shapes and sizes.
Building-level Internet
Here is a great example of how easy adding Internet services can sometimes be.
In the basement of the building where 1 rent my office space, an Internet Service
Provider (ISP) has installed a router that’s designed to bring T-1 (high-speed fiber
optic) access into the building through a line that’s running down the street from
an MCI T-3 (even higher-speed fiber optic) backbone connection about three blocks
away. That ISP rents me as many IP addresses as I need to get my computers on the
Internet. I don’t need too many, so it ends up being a good deal.
I then hook my Ethernet switch up to the building’s Ethernet network, input the IP
address and the ISP’s router address into my TCP/IP control panel, and tell the
AppleTalk control panel that I want to use Ethernet for networking. Now my Macs
are networked through the switch, using AppleTalk, at the same time that they all
have access to the building’s Ethernet network. Using individual IP addresses, each
of the computers can directly access the Internet, thanks to the router provided by
the ISP.
Chapter 17 > Networking 463
Two problems are immediately apparent in this setup, both dealing with security.
Because each of my Macs is available on the Internet, it’s possible for others to link
directly to my machines cmd, if they are able, log in using AppleTalk (over TCP/IP,
presumably using AppleTalk Remote Access). They could also conceivably log into
the Macs using TCP/IP, but because the Mac isn’t providing any particular file
services to TCP/IP, the infiltrator won’t get much further than being able to tell that
the Mac is active on the Internet.
Any Macs (or AppleTalk-enabled Windows PCs) could conceivably access your
network if they’re also wired into the building. Without the proper security
measures, they may easily be able to access your data. In my building, the top floor
houses a local weekly newspaper that uses Macintoshes for much of their
production work. The first day 1 set up my network for Internet access using the
building’s Ethernet connections, I was able to log directly into that paper’s server
and had access to nearly everything they’d stored there. (I’ve since consulted with
them to fix this oversight.)
Otherwise, this is the easy way to add Internet to a Mac-based LAN. With IPs
assigned and TCP/IP control panels active and properly filled in, my entire office
surfs and sends mail at a gleeful fraction of 1.5 Mbps. The same could easily be
done for a larger business or organization that can afford a dedicated T-1
connection for its own buildings. Get somebody to install a router for your LAN,
and you’ll have high-speed Internet available to all your Macs.
•o*® Some security risks result from putting your Mac on the Internet or a building-
's,,^ \ wide network, including incorrectly setting the privileges for file sharing and Web
sharing. Setting up file sharing and Sharing privileges is discussed in more depth in
Chapter 27.
Internet gateways
A Macintosh, UNIX machine, or Windows NT server can often act as an Internet
router of its own, using two Ethernet connections to accept a T1 connection on one
end and use the other card to wire it to a network of Macs (or other computers).
Although it often makes sense to use a hardware router designed to do the same
thing, employing a computer can make sense in some circumstances, too.
Note
The combination of hardware and software to translate and route network data is
often called a gateway, perhaps to differentiate the concept from hardware routers,
which are physical boxes that sit between networks, moving packets back and forth.
One such software router is the Apple IP Gateway, a product that enables LocalTalk
networks to access Internet resources. Running on a server that’s attached to
Ethernet and LocalTalk, the Gateway acts in conjunction with the Apple Internet
Router to route TCP/IP protocol packets from the incoming Ethernet connection to
the computers on the LocalTalk network.
464 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Another interesting solution is the Vicom Internet Gateway (www . vi comtech . com),
a software gateway that gives three, five, or an unlimited number of Macs on your
network Internet access through a single Internet account connection. The Vicom
Internet Gateway runs on a Mac that has a connection to an ISDN modem or a
cable-modem connection, or is connected to a physicai Internet router. The
Gateway then acts as a firewall, an access shield, and a transparent gateway for
Macs connected to it that access Internet resources.
A similar gateway product, IPNetRouter, was in alpha testing during the writing of this
book. Created by Sustainable Softworks (www. sustworks . com), it promises to be a
low-cost solution to routing IP data from dial-up and ISDN accounts to Macs attached
via network cabling. It uses a technology called IP Masquerading to offer multiple
Macs the opportunity to use a single IP account.
Other software routers tend to be part of larger non-Macintosh server bundles
designed to offer Internet service to AppleTalk-based networks. Windows NT, for
instance, provides AppleTalk IP services that will route TCP/IP packets from the
server to the AppleTalk network, when necessary. Although Ethernet-based Macs
are generally capable of dealing with TCP/IP without help, the Windows NT gateway
makes the process more efficient by routing TCP/IP packets addressed specifically
to those Macs.
How do you access the Internet using one account and
stay secure?
It may seem like two different problems, but it really isn't. Here's a situation typical of
school networks, although you may feel the same way about your small-business network:
You'd like to use a single Internet account to access the Internet, but you want the whole
network to have access. You'd also like to keep your data secure, and you'd like to filter the
sites that your users see. Can it be done?
Products like the Vicom Internet Gateway are designed to do just that. They offer access to
a single account for multiple Macs using something called a Dynamic Host Configuration
Protocol (DHCP) server. This allows a number of Macs to use internal IP addresses to com-
municate amongst themselves, but use a single external IP for transactions on the Internet.
That's the first thing to look for.
The second thing you'll need is firewall support. This can be done through a software gate-
way or a hardware firewall router. In essence, a firewall lets TCP/IP data get out from your
network, but it will only allow certain data back in. That, in theory, keeps people from crawl-
ing around in your computers. Firewalls can also guard against other sorts of Internet hack-
ing, such as denial-of-service attacks. (That's when a hacker tries to catch your Web server,
mail server, or other Internet sen/er in an endless loop of meaningless data, making it
impossible for the server to handle normal data.)
(continued)
Chapter 17 Networking 465
(continued)
The third thing to look for is filtering technology. You can use gateway software that gives
you control over the domains, types of search queries and other information regarding the
sites visited by your users to keep a list of sites or keywords that should be disallowed in
searches or attempts to link to the sites. This keeps employees from surfing aimlessly and
kids from seeing things they shouldn't -at least, that's the theory.
SOHO routers
If you’re setting up Internet access for a multinational corporation, youTI probably
need a resource other than this book to set up a router for your T-1 or T-3
connections. That’s inter-networking, after all, which is pretty much platform
independent. You’ll need to set up an industrial-strength router for the task and
begin the process of configuring it.
For SOHO (small office, home office) networks, however, routers exist that make
more sense. Specifically designed to send TCP/IP packets across your AppleTalk
network, these routers usually hook up to the Internet over phone, ISDN, or other
high-speed lines, and then route the TCP/IP data to your LAN (see Figure 17-14).
Figure 17-14: The WebRamp M3t Internet router
(WWW . webramp . com) bonds two phone connections together to
offer higher-speed Internet access to your small LAN. (Photo
courtesy Ramp Networks.)
466 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Some of these routers connect to two or more dial-up PPP Internet accounts, and
then use both together to offer access to the entire office LAN. Others use ISDN,
ADSL or similar technologies, but share that bandwidth with every machine
attached over networking cable to the router. Most of these products also feature
DHCP support, enabling multiple internal IPs to be assigned while using only one
(or two) Internet accounts and IPs for accessing the outside world.
Table 17-3 includes Mac-friendly companies that offer Internet routers for home or
small businesses.
Table 17-3
internet router manufacturers
Company
Connection Technology Web Site
Sonic Systems ISDN, modem, leased line www . soni csys . com
Netopia
ISDN, T-1, leased line
www.netopia.com
Ramp Networks
ISDN, modem
www.webramp.com
One World Systems
Modem
WWW. oneworldsys terns .com
Sustainable Softworks
ISDN, modem (software only)
WWW. sustworks . com
Summary
♦ Macs support three basic networking protocols and three basic networking
cabling specifications, although two of each are more common. You’ll find
both AppleTalk and TCP/IP widely used on Mac networks, although clients
exist for the Novell NetWare standard IPX protocol. You’ll also find Macs
connected to each other using LocalTalk and Ethernet cabling, although the
IBM standard. Token Ring, was in vogue for a while.
♦ To set up a Mac network, you’ll need to decide first on the network
technology you’re going to use — LocalTalk or Ethernet — and then you’ll
have to decide on the type of wiring. LocalTalk networks can use either
LocalTalk or PhoneNet cabling; Ethernet networks use 10Base2 or lOBaseT.
With those decisions out of the way, you’ll need to access your Macs’
capabilities for networking, add new cards if necessary, and then wire the
Macs all together. Finally, configure AppleTalk and start networking.
Chapter 17 4 Networking 467
^ If you want to add Intel-compatible PCs to your network, you’ll need to use
compatible cabling and software. Adding Ethernet to PCs Is easy, because it’s
the same technology PCs use to network to each other. Adding LocalTalk is a
bit tougher, but not impossible. After the Macs and PCs are wired together,
you add the special software drives to enable PCs to communicate in
AppleTalk or Macs to communicate in PC networking protocols — whichever
seems more appropriate.
'f Apple has also come up with some interesting ways to access your Mac — or a
whole AppleTalk network — from a remote location. Using Apple Remote
Access, you can dial in to your Mac and access anything on its hard drive or
on the AppleTalk network. All you need is a modem and software.
If you’ve got a network up and running, you’d probably like to add Internet
access to the network. That’s easy to do, too, with a number of different
options. If you have accounts for everybody, you can attach yourself directly
to the Internet using a router or a direct Ethernet hookup to your ISP. If you’d
like to use one account for many different users, you’ll need gateway software.
♦ With the right hardware, you can even hook up a small business or home
network to the Internet. All you need is an Internet router and one or two
Internet accounts. The special router will tie together two different modem
connections, a single high-bandwidth ISDN, or cable connection, giving
everyone reasonable speed for their Internet connection over your network.
^ ^ ^
Multimedia and
Gaming
I t could easily be argued that the topics of gaming and
professional multimedia production don’t belong together.
At one end of the spectrum you have artists and animators
spending thousands of dollars on equipment that can help
them render 3D objects, get those objects moving around the
screen, and output them to film, video, or CD-ROM. At the
other end are people clambering into the computer store to
plop down $50 for the latest shoot-’em-up. Funny thing is, both
require powerful computers and attention to the same
technology.
On the Macintosh, those gaming and multimedia capabilities
have a lot to do with a technology I’ve already discussed at
some length in other chapters — QuickDraw. Specifically,
QuickDraw 3D, To get 3D objects rendering and moving
quickly around the screen, you can accelerate the
programming interfaces provided by Apple for creating these
objects — routines found in the technologies that draw to the
screen, QuickDraw and QuickDraw 3D.
There are other important technologies, too: QuickTime,
QuickTime VR (for creating 3D virtual reality panoramas), and
other programming helpers Apple has written called Game
Sprockets. These programmer’s shortcuts, in turn, have
brought about some other hardware to look into — game
controllers. From humble beginnings as add-ons for the
computer mouse, the joysticks, flight controllers, and steering
wheels for Mac gaming — or other simulations — have come a
long way.
^ ^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
3D technologies
3D accelerator cords
Installing on
accelerator card
Joysticks and
controllers
^ ^ ^ ^
470 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Accelerating 3D
Think for a moment about the dimensions displayed on a computer monitor.
Obviously, because there’s no actual depth to the screen (it’s flat), anything you’re
seeing on screen is in two dimensions (width and height), just as objects are two
dimensional in a canvas painting. Of course, the images can be arranged in such a
way as to suggest that they have depth, whether you’re playing a first-person
shooter game or you’re looking at a classic acrylic of a French country road. The
perspective created can give you a sense of depth that suggests three dimensions.
But rendering this sort of perspective on a computer screen can give mere mortals
fits of anxiety. QuickDraw, the technology responsible for drawing a Mac’s screen,
just wants to worry about the colors and brightness of the various pixels that make
up the bitmapped screen image. QuickDraw doesn’t really care what those pixels
represent, and it doesn’t want to worry about that sort of thing. So, although some
rules and limitations for graphics are built-in, just exactly what is displayed on your
screen is completely up to the programmer.
Over the years, Apple has written software routines for programmers that make up
the Macintosh Toolbox and associated technologies. One of the things they’ve
focused on are tools that help programmers draw windows, buttons, icons, and text
on the screen — all the sorts of things you often expect to see in a Mac program.
With these tools, programmers don’t have to write such detailed instructions for
their programs as the following: “Start at the pixel 2,10 and draw a line 100 pixels
down, take a right turn and draw the line 200 pixels long, and then draw the line up
and to the left. In the middle, color it gray, put scroll bars at the bottom and to the
right, and put a close box at the top left.” Programmers can instead focus on
creating the unique parts of the program by calling routines that are more like this:
“Draw a standard window on the screen and position it in the standard place for a
new document.”
QuickDraw 3D
Once Apple got all those basic routines out of the way (of course, those things are
constantly being upgraded with newer versions of QuickDraw and new routines like
the Appearance Manager), Apple’s programmers turned their attention to more
complex routines, such as those that make up QuickDraw 3D. QuickDraw 3D’s
routines make it much, much easier for programmers to incorporate 3D graphics
and rendering capabilities into their programs (see Figure 18-1).
chapter 18 4 Multimedia and Gaming 4-7 1
Figure 18-1: QuickDraw 3D makes it possible for a fairly simple program to display
and manipulate basic objects that appear to be three dimensional.
QuickDraw 3D encompasses several components — the programmer’s application
programming interfaces (APIs), a special file format called 3-D MetaFile (3DMF), and
a rendering engine, called Render Acceleration Virtual Engine (RAVE). These all go
together to make QuickDraw 3D the unique entity that it is, offering an entire layer
of 3D capabilities to the Mac OS.
QuickDraw 3D offers some interesting compatibility statistics: It only runs on
PowerPC-based Macintosh computers and requires at minimum a Pentium in its
Windows incarnation. The Mac version is also optimized for either 16-bit or 32-bit
color depths, meaning it actually runs faster with your monitor set to use
thousands of colors instead of 256 colors, according to Apple. If you’re working
with QuickDraw 3D, then, you’d be advised to set your monitor accordingly (see
Chapter 12 for more on setting color depths).
APIs and file format
You’ve already seen that the QuickDraw 3D APIs are simple programming routines
that applications can use to more easily add 3D capabilities to their programs.
472 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
These APIs include the ability to create various polygons quickly, shape and bend
them in different ways, and render them at certain levels of shading or detail,
depending on how quickly a task needs to be done. (The more complexly rendered
an object is, the better and more realistic it looks. The better it looks, the longer it
took to render it.) These APIs are also uniquely extensible, enabling a program, for
instance, to add a different type of polygon that the QuickDraw 3D people hadn’t
added to the base code. That polygon definition is then available for use with any
program that implements QuickDraw 3D.
Somewhat separate from this is the 3DMF format, a file format that’s a lot like the
other types of Mac files I’ve mentioned (for example, word processing, sound,
movies). The 3DMF file format completely defines a 3D object, including the
geometry of the object’s structure, the way the shape is rendered, and other
multimedia elements that might be related to it, such as sounds. This enables
programs to share files that include all of this information, as opposed to some of
the other file formats in the 3D world, such as the XDF format. XDF is widely
supported for transferring files between different 3D applications, but it includes no
information on how a particular object is rendered.
3DMF has also been tapped to be the basis for the Virtual Reality Modeling
Language (VRML) 2.0 binary file format. VRML is the standard for 3D worlds on the
Internet, and Apple’s 3DMF will be the building block for VRML’s binary file format.
(VRML Ccm be described using either a text file of commands that humans can read
and understand or a binary file to be read by VRML applications only.)
QuickDraw 3D RAVE
Although QuickDraw 3D is certainly a leap forward for standardizing 3D on the Mac
platform (it also works with Windows, where QuickDraw 3D code sits on top of
Microsoft’s Direct3D technology), it’s more a standard for programmers and
software developers than users. But both can benefit from knowing a little
something about QuickDraw 3D RAVE.
Called an acceleration virtual engine, RAVE does something very interesting as a
plug-in to the Mac OS: It manages the acceleration of drawing functions for 3D
applications. In other words, a programmer can write an application using
QuickDraw 3D, which sits on top of the QuickDraw 3D RAVE layer. When the
application needs something drawn on the screen, the RAVE layer will intercept the
command and manage it most efficiently — using the processor, a plug-in
accelerator card, or software to draw the image.
This allows for two things: First, programmers can write their own drawing engines
(or driver software) that meet certain minimum requirements imposed by the RAVE
specifications, in essence enabling programmers to draw more quickly to the
screen or support special capabilities. RAVE also gives programmers a certain level
of distance from the Mac’s hardware, enabling them to write to QuickDraw 3D or
another 3D API, including the popular OpenGL standard developed by Sillicon
Graphics, and used on other UNIX-based, and Windows-based machines.
Chapter 18 4 ^ Multimedia and Gaming 473
As mentioned, this allows those programs to work with QuickDraw 3D RAVE
accelerator cards, even if the programs weren’t originally written to work with the
specific card. Instead of requiring special support for each individual accelerator
card, the RAVE layer handles all that for the programmer.
RAVE, then, is a popular way to incorporate accelerated 3D into a variety of 3D
pursuits on Macs. If you’re a professional 3D artist, you might be using a RAVE-
based accelerator card to support your complex rendering tasks, even for jobs like
creating digital images for incorporation into motion pictures. If you’re a
multimedia gamer, you might be using RAVE, too, to accelerate the more basic, but
breakneck, 3D rendering that’s required for a good action game.
Voodoo graphics
The antithesis of RAVE acceleration is Voodoo acceleration, named for the Voodoo
3D chipset created by 3Dfx, Inc (www . 3df x . com/). To work with Voodoo, game
programmers have to add commands from 3Dfx’s Glide API to their games. This
enables the program to speak directly to an accelerator card that’s designed to
boost the speed in typical 3D gaming functions. Everything that RAVE stands
against — proprietary design, board-specific drivers for applications — is what the
Voodoo approach is all about. The result: Amazingly fast and crisp 3D for gaming.
You’ll sometimes see Voodoo, 3Dfx, or Glide listed as the type of acceleration sup-
ported by a particular game -these all refer to the same thing (for practical pur-
poses). To play games that support any of the Voodoo specification, you need a 3D
accelerator expansion card with a Voodoo chipset.
For most modern games, the 3D function calls don’t really have to be that
advanced; games don’t require the shading, perfect shapes, smooth curves, and
photorealistic quality of the most complicated rendering being done for print and
film. Not that gamers and game designers don’t appreciate these qualities. It’s just
that there’s a trade-off between gaming performance and the richness of the
graphics. So, games are designed to make the most impact with less emphasis on
the highest levels of 3D sophistication.
Ultimately, this means you can be more specific about the 3D needs that a game
has. Although RAVE is designed to accelerate all 3D in a very general way, other
technologies can be designed specifically to accelerate the way a game treats 3D,
making consistent, smooth-flowing, moving 3D its top priority.
Voodoo graphics is a specification and technology built and maintained by 3Dfx,
Inc., which in turn licenses what it develops to card manufacturers like TechWorks,
maker of the Mac Power3D accelerator card (see Figure 18-2). 3Dfx also offers the
technology in the form of software development kits for game designers and other
programmers, enabling them to easily incorporate Voodoo.
474 Part II 4" Performing the Upgrade
Figure 18 - 2 : The TechWorks Power3D card is the first to allow
Mac games to use Voodoo technology for 3D acceleration.
When compared to RAVE acceleration, the Voodoo technology is a one-trick pony;
it only kicks in when a Voodoo-enabled game is running, and it only works for 3D
acceleration — 2D graphics tasks continue to be handled by a regular video card.
So, unlike RAVE technology, it can’t be repurposed to some other 3D task, such as
creating 3D objects for print or multimedia presentations. And it won’t accelerate
the editing or manipulation of regular QuickDraw 3D objects in Mac applications.
However, the results can be pretty astounding compared to regular Mac rendering
or even RAVE accelerated 3D video. That makes Voodoo technology an enticing
prospect for gamers who really enjoy good graphics.
Interestingly, TechWorks has worked with Connectix and Insignia -the makers of
VirtualPC and SoftWindows, respectively -to give Intel-compatible PC emulators the
capability of using the Power3D card as if it were also part of the emulated PC. (Learn
more about PC emulators in Chapter 19.) That means these emulators can render
PC-based games at higher rates of speed and better quality, opening up a large selec-
tion of PC games to Mac owners.
3D Accelerator cards
If you’re interested in Voodoo-based cards, your choices for Mac-specific ones are
almost completely limited to the Power3D card from TechWorks (www. techworks .
com). This card is a PCI expansion card that connects to your original video
circuitry using a special cable, which is included. Although it’s currently the only
Chapter 18 ^ Multimedia and Gaming 475
stand-alone Voodoo accelerator specifically for Macs, its popularity suggests that
others may appear on the market soon, so keep on the lookout. (Note, by the way,
that all accelerator cards require PCI-based Power Macs, with the exception of
some early QuickDraw 3D RAVE accelerators that can work with NuBus-based
Power Macs.)
The Power3D card actually supports gaming-specific RAVE acceleration, too, so it’s
recommended for games that offer either RAVE or 3Dfx compatibility.
Another card, the Mac Picasso 540 from Village Tronics
(WWW. VI 1 1 agetroni cs . com), offers Voodoo support through an add-on 3D
accelerator card that complements the basic 2D video card. The whole package is a
bit more expensive than the Power3D, but it offers 3D in a window (not just for full-
screen gaming) and other more general 3D acceleration. All-in-all it’s a powerful
solution, but the price may make it overkill for someone who’s only interested in
gaming acceleration.
Fortunately, you also have the choice of using an Intel-compatible PC-oriented card,
if you so desire, thanks to an adapter and driver software from Griffin Technology
(WWW. nashvi lie. net/~gri f f i n). The adapter is promised to work with nearly
any Mac and monitor combination, but stop by the Web site to be sure.
At the time of writing, a new 3Dfx card has been announced for Macs that supports
the Voodoo 2 chipset from Micro Conversions (www.microconversions.com).
Another interesting move is support for the acceleration of yet another 3D standard,
OpenGL OpenGL may become more popular in Mac gaming (and in professional
multimedia) as a result, although that remains to be seen. The first of these cards is
the Vision 3D, offered by Mactell (www.mactel 1 . com).
Installing the Power3D
The PowerSD is a fairly unique add-on for Mac video, because it doesn’t actually
take over the 2D video functions as well as 3D rendering — so, your original video
circuitry and connections will stay, too. As the card has to turn on and off
depending on the application (when a Voodoo-enabled game is running, the 2D
video circuitry is interrupted by the Power3D card), it has to have a way to control
the Mac’s video. It does that by intercepting the signal via a cable connected to the
Mac’s video circuitry. You then connect your monitor to the Techworks card.
To install a Power3D card, follow these steps:
1. Shut down your Mac, ground yourself, and unplug the Mac from your surge
protector or wall socket.
2. Open the Mac’s case and locate an available PCI expansion slot.
3. Install the Power3D card in that slot.
476 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
4. On the back of your Macintosh, remove the monitor’s cable from your Mac’s
video port (or the video port on your video expansion card, if one is present).
Plug the cable that Techworks includes with the PowerSD into the video port,
and then plug the other end of the cable into the video-in port on the
PowerSD card.
5. Connect your monitor to the PowerSD card’s VGA-out port. (You may need to
use the included Mac-video-to-VGA adapter).
6. With everything reassembled, plug in your Mac and start it up.
7. Run the PowerSD software installer. After restarting your Mac, you should be
ready to use the card. Install and play one of the included Voodoo-compatible
games (or any others you have on hand).
Notice that the PowerSD card — with its VGA-out port — is directly compatible with
many third party monitors, but requires an adapter to work with Apple displays.
However, the cable that is installed between your Mac’s video port and the
PowerSD is an RGB-to-VGA adapter. You’ll need to call Techworks to request a
different adapter if your video card happens to have only a VGA (HD15) port,
because the cable assumes that your Mac has an RGB (DB15) port for video.
Also realize that the PowerSD card may not work with non-multisync monitors (like
the Apple 12” and IS” color monitors) and it doesn’t support resolutions lower than
640x480. The adapter that’s included generally won’t cause trouble with multisync
monitors, but you may find that using another RGB-to-VGA adapter (one with
selectable resolution settings, for instance) improves your monitor’s ability to
change resolutions and color depths.
choosing a RAVE card
RAVE-compatible accelerators are a much more open market, offering a wide range
of capabilities, features, and prices. The most basic RAVE cards are usually 3D
accelerators combined with 2D video card circuitry — which may also offer regular
QuickDraw acceleration for drawing windows, icons, and other 2D tasks. This
makes the low-end RAVE video cards a nice addition to modern Macs, giving them
the ability to speed up all sorts of computer video tasks.
Apple made the earliest of these cards, the Apple QuickDraw 3D Accelerator (which
can still be found occasionally on store shelves, although it’s been discontinued).
Other companies in this space include ATI Technologies and IXMicro.
High-end cards are designed for professional applications, and the cards
themselves require more advanced chipsets, more RAM, and broader feature sets.
Many of these cards tout advantages like Gourand shading, parity with QuickDraw
3D textures, and z-buffering (a process by which data regarding the perspective of a
3D image is buffered so it plays back smoothly when animated). Table 1^1 shows
the major vendors of QuickDraw acceleration cards.
Chapter 18 > Multimedia and Gaming 4*77
Table 18-1
QuickDraw 3D Accelerator Manufacturers
Manufacturer
Web Site
ATI Technologies
WWW. at i .com
Matrox Graphics
www.matrox.com
IXMicro
www.ixmicro.com
Number Nine
www.nine.com
As an added bonus, you’ll find that most of these cards also accelerate QuickTime
playback, giving you full-screen video capabilities. Some also specifically offer
MPEG acceleration, which usually means you get crisp, full-screen playback of
movies in the popular MPEG video format (see Chapter 13 for more on video
formats).
Installing a Rave video card
Unlike the Voodoo variety, SD-accelerated RAVE-compatible cards tend to offer a
built-in alter-ego: a mild-mannered 2D video card. Therefore, installation doesn’t
require the extra cabling that Voodoo cards do, as all video functions are built into
the single card. The card installs like any other expansion card, with the exception
of the software drivers. Here’s how to install the typical video card:
1. Shut down your Mac and electrically ground yourself. Unplug the Mac from its
surge protector or wall socket.
2. Open the Mac’s case and locate an empty expansion slot. (Visually inspect it
to ensure it’s the right type of slot for your video card.)
3. Remove the screw and metal dust plate that covers the hole in back of the
case for the slot you’ll be using.
4. Position the card so that the card’s interface is directly over the slot. Press
down lightly and uniformly on the top corners of the expansion card until it’s
firmly installed in the slot.
5. Attach a monitor’s cable to the RGB port on the back of the card. You may
need to use a multisync adapter if your monitor has a VGA connector,
although many accelerated video cards offer both RGB and VGA connectors
(see Figure 18-3).
6. Turn on your computer and monitor. You may need to install special software
for your accelerated video card: Do so and restart your Mac. You should then
be able to adjust how your monitor displays the Mac’s graphics using the
Monitors (or Monitors & Sound) control panel.
478 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Figure 18-3: Ifs very possible your video cards offers two port
choices -standard Mac RGB or Intel-compatible VGA.
The software you install will likely appear where it should on your Mac, although
you may have to manually drag system extensions to the System Folder in some
cases. To accelerate graphics in games and multimedia, the card Is likely to install a
number of QuickTime extensions, too, such as QuickTime RAVE. Note very carefully
that the card doesn’t install older versions of these QuickTime files — a somewhat
common occurrence. (Chapter 31 offers specific tips on how to track newly
installed files.)
If your Mac has built-in video or a video card that you’re not replacing with your
new RAVE-compatible one, don’t forget that it should still be fully functioned and
useful, because nearly any Mac can handle multiple monitors for output. Hook up
another monitor to your original video circuitry and run them side by side, if you
like. Just don’t forget to use the RAVE-compatible screen and video circuitry when
you want to work with accelerated 3D.
Mac Gaming
Apple made a big commitment to game developers in 1997, with a renewed
commitment vocalized by Apple’s management since then, in relation to Apple’s
push back into consumer markets with the IMac and Its siblings. Although Apple
has historically had a love/hate relationship with games (spurning the notion that
the Mac is a “toy” computer — a moniker it received shortly after introduction in
1984) these days Apple seems more at ease with game developers and encourages
their proliferation. After all, the Intel-compatible PC world is filled to the brim with
games, yet those Windows machines are still seen as a major standard in the
business world.
Chapter 18 4 * Multimedia and Gaming 479
Part of that commitment to gaming can be seen in some interesting new system
software that Apple wrote to help game producers — Apple Game Sprockets. These
OS add-ons enable game developers to focus more on painting graphics, creating
monsters, and building storylines, because they’re able to call on Apple
standardized routines for things like controlling the action and creating advanced
sound and images.
At the same time, this approach to gaming (and its constantly increasing popularity
on Macs) has spawned the next generation of control devices for playing games,
from steering wheels to weapons control systems (WCS) that emulate the F-16
fighter jet. There probably hasn’t been a better time than now to get involved in
computer gaming on the Macintosh.
Game Sprockets
As a typical user, you probably won’t have to deal much with the Game Sprockets.
After all, they’re simply extensions (actually, shared libraries) that games can
install in your System Folder. Of course, you’ll need to know they exist and figure
out how to troubleshoot them if you have problems with a game (you can find a
discussion of this in Chapter 28).
But if you’d like to know what these sprockets actually do, here’s a quick overview.
Aimed at game designers who want to design for the Mac’s advanced interface but
are also interested in getting the games quickly to market, the sprockets take some
of the Mac’s best features and make it easy for the game developer to add them.
Here are the current Game Sprockets and what, exactly, they do:
4 SoundSprocket. Gives the programmer easy access to routines for traditional
sound functions as well as new 3D sound technologies developed by Apple.
The 3D sound approach enables the programmer to immerse gamers in a
virtual world where sounds travel around the central characters as they move
through a gaming environment. Doppler effects, distancing, and spatial
location are all made possible.
4 DrawSprocket. Helps developers to create smoother display of images on
screen, using a technology called double- or triple-buffering. This means the
Mac renders images ahead of time, putting them in a buffer (reserved portion
of memory) until they’re needed. The DrawSprocket can automatically use
special hardware or just software to render the scenes. The DrawSprocket
also has access to screen sizing and resolution and color depth options, and it
works with QuickTime for some animation functions.
4- NelSprocket. Provides a standardized mechanism for adding Internet and
local network connections to your game for head-to-head and teamwork-style
game choices. It allows the developer to use Open Transport protocols and to
create groups of gamers for connected play.
480 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
4 InputSprocket. Offers the developer a standard way to accept input from a
variety of devices. This creates a quick-and-useful standard for writing input
device drivers — small bits of software that describe the joystick’s capabilities
to the InputSprocket. With all this in force, it’s possible for very advanced
controller options to be used by games without too much specialized
programming.
This is just a bit of brute-force programming Apple has done to help game
developers along, though it’s also a smart way to get programmers to support other
Apple technologies — QuickDraw 3D, QuickTime, and QuickTime VR, for instance;
this in turn results in games that offer Apple and Mac-specific advantages. Because
many games use programming code originally developed for Intel-compatible or
set-top box players, having these specialized sprockets makes it easier for cross-
platform-oriented companies to add special Mac features to their games.
Game controllers
Although game controllers were around well before Apple’s Game Sprockets
technology, the offerings seem to have been enhanced somewhat by the availability
of simple work-arounds such as the InputSprocket. Early Mac controllers tended to
be very much like a Mac’s mouse — using ADB connections to generate movements
that the Mac would interpret as mouse movements, even if the device was a
joystick or other contraption (see Figure 18-4).
Figure 18-4: The venerable MouseStick II from Advanced Gravis
(www.gravis.com) is still popular, even though it sends only mouse-
like signals to the Mac.
Chapter 18 -f Multimedia and Gaming 48 1
These days, though, some of that has changed. Although unique controllers are
considerably more popular in the Intel-compatible world (where such PCs have had
a standard joystick port for years), the Mac has its share of interesting devices for
enhanced gaming. Table 18-2 lists some popular Mac-compatible game controller
manufacturers.
Table 18-2
Mac Game Controller Companies
Manufacturer
Devices
Web SHe
MacAlly
Joysticks, gamepads
www.macally.coni
Gravis
Joysticks, gamepads
www.gravis.com
ThrustMaster
Steering, flight controllers
www.thrustmaster.com
Microsoft
Joystick
www.microsoft.com/sidewinder/
CH Products
Joysticks, flight controllers
www.chproducts.com
Suncom
Joysticks
www.suncominc.com
In general, you’ll come across three classes of controller. Some offer different levels
of specialization, but most can be categorized as joysticks, gamepads, and flight
controllers.
Note
If the current crop of Mac game controllers aren't enough to satisfy you, perhaps a
joystick adapter is the appropriate solution. The Choicestick adapter from Kernel
Productions (www. kernel . com) promises to enable you to use any number of joy-
sticks and controllers from Atari, PC, Playstation, and Sega Genesis machines. And
how about joysticks for the iMac and future USB-based Macs? CH Products has
already announced their intention to build USB joysticks, with others sure to follow.
Plus, USB won't be Mac-specific, so other controller companies focused on the Intel-
compatible world may find themselves writing Mac driver software for their USB joy-
sticks, too.
Joysticks
These are probably the oldest form of game input for computers and gaming
devices, modeled on the controllers used for early standup arcade games, which in
turn modeled their controllers (presumably) on input controllers used in robotics
and military applications.
Originally, Mac joysticks simply offered a different way to give mouse input, and
hence rarely required any additional extensions or settings to work properly. As
more sophisticated ideas and technologies have become popular, however,
joysticks have added functions. In some cases, joysticks offer more precise
482 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
movements, programmable buttons, and, occasionally, force feedback. This
technology actually causes the joystick to react to events in the game with
shudders and shimmies.
Figure 18-5 shows a joystick modeled on a fighter aircraft’s controller.
Figure 18-5: The Fighter Stick from CH Products is a serious joystick.
Gamepads
Joining us from the world of set-top game machines is the gamepad, a small,
handheld device used as a rocker control; individual buttons provide movement
control. These controllers often feature a number of buttons, some of which can be
programmed for a particular game. Gamepads encourage you to use both hands
completely while playing, making them less than ideal for games that require
keyboard input, but really useful for games that don’t. Some models are easy to
switch from right-handed play to left-handed play (that is, you can configure the
button functions to suit whichever hand is dominant), offering a clear advantage
over many joysticks. Figure 18-6 shows a gamepad.
Flight (driving) controllers
Serious and often more expensive than your average joystick or gamepad, these
controls tend to offer very specific shapes and designs. Playing off the popularity of
flight and driving simulator software, both CH Products and Thrustmaster offer
very sophisticated knock-offs of real-world controls.
Both companies Include joysticks and yokes fashioned after real-life fighter planes
and other aircraft, as well as rudder pedals, throttle controllers, and weapons
chapter 18 4 Multimedia and Gaming 483
systems that round out the realism. With all of these controllers at hand, you
probably will have spent a few hundred dollars — but, with the right software
(and maybe a 3D accelerator) you’ll have a full-fledged simulation cockpit (see
Figure 18-7).
Figure 18-6: The CH Gamepad from CH Products is an example
of a gamepad controller.
Figure 18-7: With all these controllers you can put together a fairly
convincing flight simulator for your home or office.
484 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Your cockpit doesn't have to be all fun and games, either. Realistic flight models exist
in a number of cross-country and general aviation simulations for the Mac, some of
which use these controllers for more realistic input.
Summary
4“ The force behind a lot of Mac multimedia development is QuickDraw 3D, a
Mac OS technology that programmers and artists can use to render complex
3D objects, landscapes, and other vistas for film or print. It’s also the basic
engine that drives a lot of Mac gaming, along with QuickTime technologies.
4 You can get better 3D performance from your Mac — and sometimes better
overall video — by adding a QuickDraw 3D accelerator card. Various levels
exist to help different sorts of users.
^ If your needs are more gaming oriented, a Voodoo graphics add-on card is
another option. This works in conjunction with your existing Mac video
circuitry to create incredible 3D performance in games, but at a very
affordable price.
4 In fact, gaming is a strong theme for Apple these days, with the release of
Game Sprockets, a set of programmers tools that enable game developers to
add special Mac-only sound, input device, and Internet tools to their games.
4 Game Sprockets and some other factors have led to newer and more exciting
game controllers, including joysticks, gamepads, and amazing flight and
driving controllers that turn your Mac into an arcade-style simulator.
4 - 4 ^ >
Dealing with
DOS and
Windows PCs
A lot of people use the Mac because they want to, in spite
of some pressure to join the majority and use the same
computing platform — the Intel/Windows combination — that
most of the rest of the world has decided to use. In many
cases, you’ll find that, even within your organization or your
company, or among your colleagues, having a Mac stands out
from the norm.
Perhaps because of the Mac’s uniqueness, the burden of proof
tends to fall on our shoulders. Whether it’s remaining
compatible with DOS floppies, working with their removable
media, translating Windows file formats, or even running the
occasional Windows program, the Mac has had to be the more
flexible of the two platforms.
Fortunately, the Mac does a pretty good job. If you have a
reason to use just about any file format, disk, or even a
program from the Windows/Intel (Wintel) world, you’ll
probably be able to. And you might even impress your
Windows-using friends along the way.
When I say your Mac can work well with the Wintel world,
what do I mean? Here are all the choices you have to help
your Mac be a good citizen:
> You can use your Macintosh to read PC floppy disks. Zip
disks, and other removable media.
Your Mac can read Windows (and DOS) file formats and
convert them for use on the Mac.
4 ^ > >
In This Chapter
Working with
DOS files
Running DOS and
Windows programs
Adding an Intel-
compatible PC Card
Using PC peripherals
4^44
486 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Mac applications can export most files in a Windows-compatible format.
^ Macs can run Windows programs in software.
4 You can install an expansion card In many Macs that enable them to run
Windows and DOS programs on an actual Intel (or Intel-compatible)
processor.
^ You can use Intel-compatible peripherals such as keyboards, mice and — in
some cases — modems and other serial devices.
sharing DOS Files
The easy way to get along with your DOS or Windows-touting counterparts is to be
able to work with just about any file that comes your way. With a well-equipped
Mac, you can do just that. This used to require separate control panels for your
Mac that had to be store bought, but these days most of the software you need to
be compatible is sold as part of the Mac OS; if you’ve upgraded to Mac OS 7.6 or
above, you should have the basic tools for reading DOS-formatted floppy disks,
formatting DOS floppies, reading DOS-formatted removable media (most of it), and
translating files to and from Windows application formats.
By the way, I talk about DOS or MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System)
formatting because floppies and media used on Windows and Intel-compatible
machines are formatted to be backward compatible with nearly all Windows and
DOS versions, even if the floppies themselves are used in Windows 95 or Windows
98 machines. The same is somewhat true for Mac disks; in most cases, disks aren’t
formatted for a particular Mac OS version — they work with all versions.
Because Windows, in a matter of speaking, is simply a new version of DOS, the file
format hasn’t changed. The only major difference is that Windows 95 and above can
use long (255-character) filenames, whereas DOS can only handle eight-character
names with three-letter extensions (known as the 8.3 convention). Before Mac OS
8.1, the Mac OS could also only handle the 8.3 version of DOS filenames when using
DOS-formatted media. The latest OS versions, however, now handle Windows’
longer names.
Actually, even if you have an older version of the Mac OS, you can still work with files
that are named using the newer long filename convention for Windows 95 or
Windows 98 — you just won't see those long filenames. Because it has to continue to
be backward compatible with DOS, the Windows long-filename scheme also includes
short (8.3) filenames that are saved as part of the disk's information about its files.
So, if a DOS-based or older Mac OS-based computer tries to view the directory of
files, that OS sees the shorter names it's expecting to see.
Chapter 19 -f Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 487
Reading DOS media
If you’re working in an office or organization where you often receive DOS floppy
disks, you may already know that you can read the floppy simply by inserting it in
the floppy drive of any Mac (in the Mac II series and up) that’s running Mac OS 7.5
or above.
Two elements come together to enable this to happen. First, Macs newer than a
Mac 11 feature what Apple calls a SuperDrive floppy mechanism — a high-density
(1.44MB) floppy drive that offers the ability to read variously formatted disks. That
includes DOS formats, Mac formats, and even ProDOS, the Apple II disk format.
The second factor is PC Exchange, a control panel included with the Mac OS 7.5 and
above. (It was available separately for earlier Mac OS versions.) This control panel
makes it possible for the SuperDrive to read and write to DOS-formatted floppies, as
well as being responsible for mapping DOS/Windows file extensions, the three-letter
system DOS uses to relate programs and their associated documents. Using the
control panel, you can tell your Mac which of your Macintosh applications should
be used to open a particular DOS document.
In Mac OS versions before Mac OS 8.1, other DOS-formatted media could be read as
well, including CD-ROM drives. Zip drives, and Jaz drives. The Mac wasn’t always
reliably reading Zip and larger removable media drives that were DOS-formatted,
however, so Mac OS 8.1 included an upgraded version of PC Exchange. Now, not
only can it read removable media more reliably, but it also supports the Windows
95/98 long filename system.
As you may know, the PC Exchange control panel also makes it possible to format a
floppy disk in DOS format so you can exchange it with DOS/Windows users. To do
so, just insert the floppy in the Mac’s floppy drive. If the disk is unformatted, you’ll
be asked if you want to format the disk — choose DOS 1.4 from the Format menu. If
the disk is already formatted, you’ll get the same choices by selecting the disk’s
icon in the Finder and choosing Specials Erase Disk.
Translating DOS file formats
Even after you’ve gotten the DOS floppy mounted on your desktop and the
DOS/Windows files copied onto your hcird drive, you’ve still got to do something
with the files. As with Macintosh programs, DOS and Windows applications tend to
have their own file formats, even for new versions of the same program. Microsoft
Word documents, for instance, might be in Microsoft Word for DOS 1.0 format,
Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0 format, or even Word 97 (for Windows 95) format.
Each of these formats requires a particular filter to properly load a file into a
Macintosh word processing document.
488 Part II > Perfonning the Upgrade
You’ll find that some Macintosh applications have the built-in ability to read DOS
and Windows files — especially if the files are made by the same company. For
instance, Microsoft Word 6.0 for Mac can read Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows and
Microsoft Word for DOS file formats, whereas Word 98 for Mac can read those
formats as well as the Word 97 format. (It can also translate Rich Text Format and
MS Works documents, both of which are also Microsoft file formats.) In these cases
and in others, Microsoft makes these translators available from within the program
or as add-ons (often free) available on upgrade CD-ROMs and via the Microsoft Web
site (www.mi crosoft . com/macoffi ce).
These capabilities are far from universal, however. To add system-level translation
of file formats for nearly any of your Mac applications, a system software add-on is
required. The most popular, MacLinksPlus from Dataviz (wwv/.datavi z . com), is not
only commonly used, but included with Mac OS 7.6 and above.
Indications are that these translators may not be included with Mac OS 8.5 and
higher, in which case 1 highly recommend installing them from an older installation
disc and/or contacting Dataviz for a new version.
What MacLinksPlus does is append the File Open and Save As dialog boxes with a
number of different translators that support DOS/Windows file formats from many
different manufacturers. Not all Mac applications support MacLinksPlus, but a good
number of them do. ClarisWorks cind AppleWorks, for instance, get quite a boost
from adding MacLinksPlus, as shown in Figure 19-1. (Certain versions of ClarisWorks
and ClarisWorks Office include a version of MacLinksPlus, just in case you haven’t
upgraded your Mac OS recently.)
Dataviz also makes translators that work the other way — Mac files to DOS/Windows
formats — for the lonely PC user in a sea of Macintosh-based colleagues. The
program ConversionPlus is available for Windows and Windows 95/98 users, and
Dataviz makes other programs for more specific uses. The company also offers
upgrades to the version of MacLinksPlus offered with the Mac OS. The upgrades
generally feature bug fixes along with more and newer translators for programs that
have come on the market since the latest Mac OS release.
DOS file archives
DOS file archives are the third link in the chain — especially if you’ll be transferring
documents over the Internet. Archives Eire files or groups of files that have been
compressed into a single, much smaller file that can be used to store or transmit
the files over phone lines. (Actually, not all archives consist of compressed files, as
archives can also be used to simply group files together in one file. That said, most
of the Mac and DOS archive formats are also designed for compression.)
Compression schemes look for redundancies in the file data (whether it’s a binary
file — like an image or program — or a text file) and compress the files based on
sophisticated algorithms. The result is a file that takes up less disk space and
transfers more quickly over modem or Internet connections. Once a file is
compressed, however, it can’t be used until it’s decompressed by a utility that
understands its archive format.
Chapter 19 -f Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 480
ZZITK
WordDOSS^IMncLInkei
Word DOS 6jO|MacLinkc|
Word MacaO|MACUnk«l
Word Mac 4D IMacllnk«|
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WordPerfect 1.0j[ ~
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WordPerfect Mac 3.1
WordPerfect PC 4.2
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WriteNow Mac SO [MacLInkO]
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Figure 19-1 : MacLinksPlus adds quite a few entries to the Open As menu in a
ClarisWorks dialog box.
Macs and Intel-compatible PCs have traditionally used different archive formats.
On the Macintosh, the overwhelming favorite is the Stuffit format, created by
Aladdin Systems (www. al addi nsys . com), maikers of Stuffit Expander and Stuffit
Deluxe. Another favorite is Compact Pro, maintained by Cyclos (wv/w . eye 1 os . com),
although it’s more popular for creating professional installer programs than it is for
day-to-day use between Mac users. (Stuffit files are much more the standard, at
least for individual use. Other programs, including Stuffit InstallerMaker and
MindVision VISE, are also popular for creating professional installations for
programs and applications.)
On the Intel-compatible side, PKZip, created and maintained by PKWARE, Inc.
(www . pkwa re . com), dominates for archiving. Unfortunately, Stuffit and PKZip
aren’t compatible with one another, so special utilities are required for either
the Mac or the PC to read the other’s archives.
Ageiin, the translation tasks usually fall to the Mac owner. Because you can’t rely on
an Intel-compatible PC user to have Stuffit Expander on hand (although Aladdin
Systems makes a Windows-compatible version of the program), it’s important to
create PKZip-compatible archives for them to use. To do that, you’ll need Zipit, a
shareware program by Tom Brown.
490 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Zipit and Stuffit Expander all are available on the CD-ROM included with this book. Zipit is
a shareware program that you should pay for if you enjoy using it; Stuffit Expander is
freeware from Aladdin Systems.
With Zipit, for instance, both creating and using PKZip-compatible archives is
simple. From Zipit’s file menu you can use the New command to create a new
archive in PKZip format, and then add files you want to compress inside the archive
by choosing Zip*1> Add from the menu bar. If you want to extract files from an
existing archive, you can open the archive through Zipit’s File O Open command,
and then highlight the files you want to return to an uncompressed state and
choose Zip O Extract from the menu bar (see Figure 19-2).
Figure 19-2: The Zipit compression/decompression utility makes it easy to deal with
PC files.
One word of caution: Zipit has a habit of saving files in a MacBinary format by
default when you go to create an archive of compressed Mac documents. However,
MacBinary files tend to confuse Intel-compatible PCs — MacBinary is really only
useful if you’re sending files to other Mac users in an archive using PKZip format. In
the Preferences (File O Preferences General), find the Use MacBinary entry and
choose the When Necessary or Never button. Choose Never if you’ll only be
sending PKZip files to Intel-compatible PC users. (Realize, though, that you may
lose Mac-specific information when you send a file this way; this method is best
used when you’re sending cross-platform documents like graphics files or word
chapter 19 4 Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 491
processing documents. If you’re sending a Mac application or file that isn’t going to
be used on the PC, just archived there, as on an FTP server, you’ll want to leave it in
MacBinary format.)
If you don’t plan to create PKZip-compatible archives, you don’t have to get Zipit.
Stuffit Expander can decompress PKZip-compatible archives, but only if you have
the optional DropStuff with Expander Enhancer shareware program from Aladdin.
This add-on to Stuffit Expander enables you to decompress all sorts of archives,
including CompactPro, PKZip, and UNIX zip and tor archive and compression
formats.
E-mail attachments
Here’s another place where you can run into trouble trying to translate files
between PC and Mac formats — attachments to e-mail messages. For documents,
programs, and compressed archives to be sent through the Internet e-mail system,
they have to be encoded, or translated using special utility programs. The reason
for this is pretty simple — the Internet e-mail protocols are generally only capable
of sending text messages, not binary (computer data) files. So, binary files must go
through a process where they’re translated into a text-based code, and then
transmitted. When they arrive at the receiving computer, the encoded file can be
turned back into a binary file for use on that computer.
That’s where the trouble starts. Macs tend to use a different text-encoding scheme —
called BinHex — than do PCs. (MacBinary is another format for Mac text encoding,
cilthough it’s a bit less popular.) In many cases, the e-mail application itself does the
encoding, and many PC e-mail programs aren’t designed to translate BinHex.
Instead, they’ll need you to send your files in a format the DOSAVindows e-mail
application can understand and translate.
The most common format for PCs is called MIME, or Base64 in your e-mail
program — in some Mac applications it’s also called AppleSingle. (Actually,
these are all slightly different formats, but they fall under the heading of “MIME-
compliant,” which makes them easiest to use in a cross-platform situation.) If
you are sending an e-mail attachment to a PC user, choose whichever of these
options is available in your e-mail program; in most cases, you don’t need a new
utility program to send an attachment that PC users can work with. Figure 19-3
shows Claris Emailer translating an e-mail attachment into Base64.
You probably shouldn't allow your e-mail program to automatically compress files it's
sending to PCs, since it'll most likely use the Stuffit file format. Instead, compress
the files into PKZip archives ahead of time, before adding it to the e-mail as an
attachment.
492 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Figure 19-3: Claris Emailer makes it simple to encode files for transfer over the
Internet to Intel-compatible PC users.
If you receive an e-mail attachment from a PC user, youMI find that most of the more
recent Mac e-mail clients handle Base64 and other MIME-compliant attachments
with grace. Usually you simply save the attachment or double-click it in the e-mail
program to use it. But if you ever do have a MIME file slip through the cracks, you
can use Stufflt Expander 4.5 or above (you’ll need DropStuff with Expander
Enhancer) to translate the MIME file. Just drag the encoded MIME document onto
the Stufflt Expander icon (or load it in Stufflt Deluxe, if you’ve purchased a recent
version of that program).
Stufflt will even handle the uuencode/uudecode format for attachments, which is a
UNIX standard for encoding files for Internet transfers (Windows and other
platforms have tools to deal with this type of attachment). You should consider
sending attachments as uuencode/uudecode if your recipient is a UNIX user.
Running DOS and Windows Programs
Because about 90 percent of the personal computers on the planet use DOS and
Windows as the operating system, there’s a lot of software written for them. As a
Mac user myself for years, I’ve rarely pined for a program for my Mac (other than
some games) that was only written for an Intel-compatible PC. Of course, some of
Chapter 19 4^ Dealing with DOS and VA/indows PCs 493
these programs are in demand among computer users — and you’ll often find them
lurking more in the business-management arena than anywhere else.
Most often you’ll find that such programs are vertical market applications — that is,
written specifically for a particular type of business or to solve a particular
industrial problem — designed to run exclusively for Windows or DOS. In those
cases, it’s often important to be able to run the application, even if you’d like to use
a Macintosh.
Short of having the program rewritten (or writing a compatible program yourself, if
you’re a Mac-sawy programmer), there are two basic types of solutions for running
Windows programs: hardware and software. On the hardware side, your options
depend on the Mac you own. Certain models can accept a PC compatibility
expansion card that enables you to actually start up and run the DOS and/or
Windows operating systems on a second processor installed inside your Mac. You
can then run most DOS/Windows programs unaltered.
On the software side, a number of Windows and Intel-compatible PC emulator
programs can actually run as Macintosh applications, but they imitate a Windows
environment to enable Windows programs to run. These emulators can take over
your floppy and CD-ROM drives and even print directly to Macintosh printers.
PC compatibility hardware
PC Compatibility Cards is the name that Apple has given in the past to a class of
expansion cards that adds PC functionality to certain Macintosh models. Other
vendors make or have made these cards, too. One of those companies, Orange
Micro (WWW. orangemi cro . com), continues to make a variety of these cards for
various Mac models. Another of the companies, Reply Corporation, has since sold
its technology to Radius Corp. (www. reply . radi us . com), which has repackaged
the cards as the Radius Detente series of cards.
With PC-compatibility expansion cards, the Mac OS does some fancy footwork to
enable you to run programs in both an Intel-compatible and a Mac environment
simultaneously (usually you hit a hot-key sequence to change from one
environment to another). The major advantage to this approach is the expansion
card features an actual Intel-compatible processor chip on it, along with video
circuitry and other components. In some cases, you can even upgrade the card by
adding extra RAM to it.
Adding an expansion board is generally the best way to get fast PC performance.
Because you’re running the DOS or Windows programs on an actual Intel-
compatible processor, there’s no translation or emulation that has to take place.
The expansion card treats your Mac’s monitor as if it were a PC monitor and your
hcu-d drive as if it were a PC hard drive (at least, part of it). So the performance
relies completely on the processor that’s installed on the card (and factors such
as the Windows version you use and how much additional RAM you install on
the card).
494 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
There's some question as to why Apple called some of its products "DOS-compatibil-
ity cards" and others "PC Compatibility Cards" The easy answer: Apple calls the cards
DOS-Compatible if they're designed for a particular Macintosh model, because the
model is called DOS compatible (the Power Macintosh 6100/60 DOS Compatible is
an example). The PC-compatible moniker is reserved for cards that can work in more
than one Macintosh model. (Heck, it's not a great reason, but it's something to hold
on to.)
PC-compatible issues
There’s no question that the engineering feat that enables an Intel (or Intel-
compatible) 486 or Pentium processor to run inside a Mac and access most of the
Mac’s internal (and many external) devices is nothing short of amazing. Still, there
have been some hurdles to overcome, and not all Macs have done so completely. In
most cases, though, these shortcomings shouldn’t affect your ability to use the
compatibility features in most business scenarios.
One of the major issues is ports. The Mac’s ports can be remapped and used by
DOS or Windows when the compatibility card is operating, but only with limited
success. With serial ports, connecting to a Mac modem from the PC side can be
problematic at best. In general, Wintel software isn’t able to get the feedback it
requires through the Mac’s serial port, which reacts a little differently than a PC’s
serial port. The result is you can’t get CTS/RTS-type flow control to activate,
meaning you’re generally limited to connection speeds of 9,600 bps or less.
As far as parallel ports are concerned, the Mac doesn’t use any such technology at
all, so it’s impossible to repurpose some port on the Mac and use it for printing to
PC-oriented printers or some other parallel device.
Orange Micro’s PC Compatibility Cards (see Figure 19-4) get around this by
including the port technology on the card itself. Many recent Orange Micro cards
come with cabling that you hook up to a single port on the card. The individual
cables sprout from this port like spaghetti, enabling you to hook up all sorts of
devices — PC serial and parallel periperals, a second monitor, PC game controllers,
and more.
Apple and Reply have used a different solution in the past — an add-on card for
serial and parallel ports. These cards can generally be found on the used market or
in select retail/mail-order warehouses. Check the major catalogs and contact
Radius’ customer service people for other options.
Chapter 19 ^ Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 495
Figure 19-4: Orange Micro is currently the only manufacturer of new PC upgrade
cards, offering a range of sizes and speeds for different Power Mac models
(www.orangemicro.com).
The other major problem you encounter with PC Compatibility Cards is that most
of them don’t include 32-bit driver software for the Windows 95/98 environment.
Instead, those operating systems are forced to drop into a special compatibility
mode reserved for older (16-bit) driver software. In the world of actucd Windows
PCs, this 16-bit compatibility mode is reserved for older components such as
CD-ROM drives and video cards sold with aging 386 and 486 systems. And, in many
cases, even the drivers for that old equipment have been upgraded to be
compatible.
The Windows 95/98 environment is slowed somewhat by being forced into a
compatibility mode, but there’s more fallout. Advanced graphical games often use
the DirectX graphics architecture written by Microsoft for game developers (similar
to Apple’s QuickDraw 3D and associated technologies discussed in Chapter 13).
Unfortunately, DirectX won’t work reliably with 16-bit driver code as part of the
mix. PC owners generally have to upgrade their systems to be 32-bit clean before
their highest-end games will run correctly — if at all.
If you have a PC Compatibility Card from Apple or Reply/Radius, you’re faced with
the same problem. But Apple and Radius have made no move to upgrade the
drivers to 32-bit, and it doesn’t seem they will anytime soon. So, you’ll be unable to
take advantage of DirectX in Windows.
496 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Orange Micro owners get a better answer — as of this writing, Orange Micro has
released testing drivers for its OrangePC line of cards. If you don’t get the 32-bit
drivers with your new card, you should head over to www.orangemicro.com to
download and install the new drivers.
Reports have it that Orange Micro is also working with Apple to write 32-bit drivers
that would be available from Orange Micro to expand the capabilities of Apple's (and
potentially Reply's) PC Compatibility Cards. Check Orange Micro's Web site for
updates or confirmations on this rumor.
Finally, Orange Micro comes through with more support than Reply and Apple
when it comes to cards that can run multiple operating systems. In most cases,
Apple and Reply cards are limited to running DOS and the various flavors of
Windows 3.1, 95, and (with limited success) 98; running IBM OS/2 and Windows NT,
for instance, isn’t possible. The OrangePC line of cards, however, does support
Windows 98, Windows NT, and OS/2.
Macs and PC Compatibility Cards
Unfortunately, not all Macs can accept a PC Compatibility Card. Although nearly
any PCI-based Macintosh can accept one of the cards from Apple, Reply, Orange
Micro, or Radius, others have been specifically designed for particular Apple
Macintosh brands. Table 19-1 shows those systems that could accept (or came
with) PC Compatibility Cards.
Table 19-1
DOS-Compatible Macs from Apple
Model
Type of Intel-compatible Processor
Quadra 610
486-level processor
Quadra 630, LC 630, Performa 630, 640
486-level processor
Power Macintosh 6100, Performa 61 10 series
486-level processor
Power Macintosh 4400, 7220
Cyrix PI 66 processor
Power Macintosh 7200, 7300
Pentium 166 processor
Note that the Cyrix-based PC Compatibility Card has unique power requirements
that prevent it from working in other Macs. The true Intel Pentium card designed
for the 7200/7300 series, however, can work in many Macs (Power Mac 7500, 7600,
8500, 8600, 9500, 9600) and is reported to also work well in PCI-based Mac OS
clones. Apple made and sold this PC Compatibility Card separately for Macs that
could handle PCI expansion cards.
chapter 19 4 Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 497
If you have one of the earlier Macs designed for a particular type of PC
Compatibility Card, you’ll need to shop a bit on the used market to see if you can
find the board made particularly for your Mac. Figure 19-5, for instance, shows a
PC Compatibility Card being installed in a Power Macintosh 6100.
Figure 19-5: This DOS compatibility card was designed specifically
to fit the PDS slot that's particular to a Power Macintosh 6100.
Other Macs can accept the Orange Micro and Reply series of cards. Reply actually
made some of the Apple PC Compatibility cards, but has been making them for
other Mac models for quite some time. Radius cards are available for Macs with LC
PDS slots, PDS slots in NuBus PowerMacintosh computers, and PCI-based Pentium
class cards (both 7” and 12” PCI cards. Table 19-2 shows the Radius line and
associated Macs.
Most of these cards feature 1MB of VRAM to connect the PC to a monitor as well as
SoundBlaster 16 support, options for add-ons like actual Intel-compatible serial and
parallel ports, and support for Ethernet through the Mac’s Ethernet connection. In
fact, some models can actually run two separate IP addresses, one each for the Mac
and PC processors. Not all these models are still generally available through retail
outlets, but you should have some luck finding one on the used market.
498 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Table 19-2
Radius/Reply PC-compatibility Cards
Model
Processor
Mac Supported
PDS 5x86/133
AMD 586-133
Power Mac 7100, 8100
LCPDS 5x86/133
AMD 586-133
Performa and Power Mac 5200, 5260, 5300,
6200, 6300 series
Detente AX 586/133
AMD 586-133
Power Macintosh 5400, 5500, 6360, 6400,
7200, 7300, 7500, 7600, 8500, 9500 and
9600 series computers and Mac clones with
7" PCI slots
Detente MX PCI
Various Pentium
Power Macintosh 7200, 7300, 7500, 7600,
8500, 9500 and 9600 series computers and
Mac compatibles with 12" PCI slots
Finally, the Orange Micro cards tend to be the most comprehensive solutions to
DOS-compatibility technology. Many of their cards have worked in a variety of Mac
models, usually based only on whether the card supported NuBus or PCI expansion
and whether the model supported a long expansion card; if the card fits in the
chassis, it should be able to work. Orange Micro cards have traditionally included
more support for Mac models by focusing on using the standard expansion buses
(NuBus and PCI) instead of PDS slots. The latest versions of Orange Micro’s cards
use more powerful Pentium processors than the Apple and Reply cards, and are
being actively updated and marketed, especially in the face of stiff competition
from the software-only emulation companies discussed later in this chapter.
Installing a PC Compatibility Card
For the most part, these cards are installed like any other expansion cards: Turn off
the power, ground yourself, find the available slot, and install it so the ports are
accessible through the back of your machine. One important caveat: Many of the
older cards are based on PDS slots, not NuBus or PCI, so you’ll need to have the
PDS slot available in your Mac.
With the card installed, your next step is likely to be connecting a web of cabling to
the card. Most of the Apple and Reply cards come with cables that connect a
unique 26-pin port to the Mac’s video, with a pass-through connector for your
monitor (and one for a PC game controller). This is the cabling that makes it
possible for you to switch between the PC and Mac environments using the same
monitor.
Chapter 19 4 ^ Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 499
If you want to use two monitors (one each for the PC and Mac environments), you
still need to connect this special cable to the PC Card's port, but connect the RGB-out
cable directly to the second monitor (you may need to use an RGB-to-VGA adapter).
This enables you to use the PC's internal video and PC game connector.
Here’s how to connect the PC-to-RGB cable:
1. Connect the PC’s cabling connector to the port on the expansion card.
2. Connect the RGB connector to your Mac’s RGB port.
3. Hook up the remaining RGB-out connector, which is designed for your
monitor, to your Mac’s monitor. You may need to attach an RGB-to-VGA
adapter if your monitor only has a VGA connector.
If this is the only cabling your card came with, it should also have a game connector
for use with PC joysticks and game controllers. You can connect this directly to a
controller or use a Y-connector — from the PC-side of your local computer store —
and connect two game controllers. (Some game controllers are too sophisticated to
share the port. Check the documentation that comes with the game controller.)
Note
Other cards, such as the OrangePC series from Orange Micro, include cabling for a
number of different ports and connections such as PC serial and parallel connections.
These cabling solutions generally connect to the PC Compatibility Card with a single
port, with the cables themselves branching out for different purposes.
Your next step is to install the software that came with the card. This generally
consists of drivers for the Mac environment that enable you to activate the card
(look for a disk or CD-ROM that says it’s for the Mac OS). Once you have these
installed, you’ll restart your Mac to activate the control panel. Next, you can
access the appropriate control panel, called PC Setup. The control panel gives
you a number of options (shown in Figure 19-6).
Figure 19-6: The PC Setup control
panel enables you to control the PC
environment.
500 Part II ♦ Performing the Upgrade
The PC Compatibility Card will need a number of settings initiated before it can
boot for the first time. Most importantly, it needs to know what to use as a hard
drive for the system. Because your Mac’s hard drive is already formatted for the
Mac file system (HFS or HFS+), the PC can’t use it directly for storing files; the PC
uses a different sort of drive format (FAT or FAT32). The PC Card works around this
by creating a new sort of Macintosh file, called a drive container. The PC Setup
control panel (for Apple’s PC Cards) tricks the card into believing that the container
file is actually an entire hard drive formatted for its use.
In fact, because this is a DOS volume that’s saved as a disk image — a special file that
acts like a disk— on your Mac, you can mount it when the PC Compatibility Card isn’t
running. Just double-click the file and it will appear on your desktop, just as would a
floppy or removable media disk.
The PC Setup control panel enables you to choose the setup file you want to use for
the C drive (the main hard drive), the D drive, and other subsidiary drives. (You
can pretty much create as many drives as the control panel — and the free space on
your hard drive — will support.) You also choose a configuration for your video
display (so the Mac knows how to display the PC screen) and how much of the
Mac’s system RAM you want to share with the card if you haven’t installed a SIMM
on the card. (The capability to share RAM depends on the sort of PC Compatibility
Card you install. Some share RAM, some don’t.)
With all those choices made, your next step will be to insert a disk in the Mac’s
floppy drive. The disk will need to be able to boot the PC system (the first disk for
DOS or Windows should work) so that you can install software for the PC to use.
Start up the PC and switch to it to watch it begin the boot-up process. Once it’s
booted successfully, you’ll need to install an operating system, along with video
and sound drivers and any other system software that was included with the card.
(Most PC Compatibility Cards include software that can share data between the
Mac’s and PC’s clipboards for supporting the Copy and Paste commands across
both platforms.)
Reply has its own control panel, called Detente, and Orange Micro supplies
OrangePCi, an application (instead of a control panel) for controlling the PC environ-
ment. You’ll need to install these and use them for setting up the PC environment,
but they’re very similar to the Apple versions.
Upgrading a PC Compatibility Card
You should generally be able to tell by looking at a PC Compatibility Card what can
be upgraded and what can’t. A few manufacturer-specific things can be added to
your Mac that work with the card — such as the serial/parallel card that Apple and
Reply have offered in the past. But some other upgrades happen right on the card
itself.
Chapter 19 ^ Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 501
The most obvious of these is RAM. Most of the PC Compatibility Cards made
support a single SIMM upgrade through which you can add between 4- and 64MB of
RAM to your card. (Newer Orange Micro cards can support up to 256MB of RAM on
a single DIMM.) IPs definitely recommended that you add RAM. With additional
RAM, both the card itself and the PC operating system will run more efficiently.
Recommended minimums are SMB for DOS and Windows 3.1 and 16MB for
Windows 95. More than that is necessary if you’ll be using graphical programs or
games, or if you plan to have more than one program open in Windows at a time.
Some of the later PCI cards from Apple and Reply offer a VRAM upgrade from the
paltry 512K included with the card to 1MB or more for better color depth and
higher resolutions in the Windows environment. Consult your manual for specifics
on the type of VRAM required — it may be a bit tough to come by. (Reply/Radius
sells a VFL\M upgrade direct from their price list.)
It seems that only cards built earlier — the DOS and Mac cards for Quadra/Centris
and Power Macintosh 6100 machines — have a socketed Intel processors. (Other PC
Compatibility Cards have soldered processors.) This means that cards can be
upgraded with processors that fit that processor socket. Originally shipped with
486-level processors, those cards can be upgraded to Pentium-level performance.
Although you may have luck finding your own AMD or Cyrix processor with a 486-
compatible pinout (and I’d be interested to hear if you have any success doing so),
Reply/Radius offers their own lOOMHz 586 (Pentium-level) upgrade complete with
installation instructions and some software upgrades (if necessary). Check out
their Web site for details.
PC emulator software
While hardware companies have been hard at work for years trying to solve the
running-Windows-on-Macs dilemma, software-emulation technology was pretty
quiet until recently. SoftWindows — and SoftPC before it — were the only solutions
for emulating DOS and Windows on a Mac so you could run applications for those
operating systems. Of course, some of this was a question of logistics, because the
original SoftPC versions were designed to run on 68040 processors, which didn’t
quite have enough power for high-speed emulation.
With the advent and popularity of the PowerPC processor, that’s changed
somewhat. The first generation of Power Macs made it possible to run Windows
and even Windows 95 (if somewhat slowly). The second and third generations of
PowerPC processors — especially the G3 and above — offered a lot of power to burn
for emulation. Under the right circumstances, these emulation programs can rival
the power of still-current, full-featured Pentium-class computers. For the first time,
Mac users are even playing PC games and multimedia titles using software
emulation.
502 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
So you can see where software emulation could be a boon for office users, too,
especially if you have a particular program written only for DOS or Windows that
you have to use as part of your job description. These emulation tools are making it
possible for Macs to stay in office settings and offer their unique advantages while
still supporting basic tasks that require DOS or Windows.
Types of emulation
There’s a pretty big difference between emulating and porting an operating system.
When you port an operating system, you actually design it so it can run on a certain
type of hardware, like the PowerPC processor. In fact, the Mac OS is a great example
of both porting and emulating an operating system. For the Mac OS to run on the
PowerPC, a new port of the original OS had to be written, as the original Mac OS
was designed to run on the Motorola 68000 family of processors. Because the Mac
OS was ported to PowerPC, older programs couldn’t even be run on the PowerPC
version of the Mac OS. Instead, only new programs could be compiled in PowerPC
computer language compilers, and then run on the new processor.
That should have made all those older programs break when they were run on the
PowerPC version of the Mac OS — they would have crashed or refused to run in the
first place. But that wasn’t really the experience awaiting Mac users. The reason:
The Mac OS for PowerPC was also able to emulate the older Mac OS for Motorola
68000 processors. This enabled the older programs to run right along with the
newer programs that had been compiled specifically for PowerPC. And, because the
PowerPC was much faster than the 68000 series, older programs didn’t seem to
slow down too much, even though they were running in emulation.
So running emulation programs such as Insignia’s SoftWindows and Connectix
Virtual PC isn’t really the same as running Windows or DOS directly on a Mac. The
difference is emulated operating systems are always wrapped in a layer of native
code — instructions that know how to talk directly to the processor and hardware.
On a Power Mac, those instructions are part of the Mac OS for PowerPC. Even Mac
OS for 68000 series Macs can’t talk directly to the processor, because it’s being
emulated.
The same goes for SoftWindows, which runs on top of the Mac OS, translating
Windows-type commands into commands that the Mac OS can recognize. The
difference would be the same as if Microsoft wrote Windows NT for PowerPC, for
instance. (Actually, Microsoft was trying to do this at one time, but abandoned the
attempt even as it neared completion.) In that case, programs written for Windows
NT for Intel processors would have to be recompiled, but would probably run just
fine. Plus, the PowerPC version of Windows NT would be talking to the PowerPC
processor directly instead of through a Mac OS intermediary.
chapter 19 > Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 503
SoftWindows and Virtual PC are alike in this respect: Both work as emulators,
bathed in Mac OS instructions that help them communicate with a PowerPC
processor. In other ways, though, they’re very different. SoftWindows, for instance,
takes the approach of emulating Windows 95 (or Windows 3.1 in some versions),
enabling you to run Windows programs on top of the Mac OS (see Figure 19-7).
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applications in an application on top of the Mac OS.
Virtual PC, on the other hand, emulates an actual Pentium MMX-class PC, right
down to the processor, video card and other hardware. That means any compatible
operating system can run in Virtual PC, Including OpenStep, OS/2, Linux, and
others. It also means Virtual PC offers more support for more games than require
regular DOS; because Virtual PC emulates PC hardware, any sort of configuration is
possible. This approach became popular enough with the release of Virtual PC that
Insignia developed with their own competitor, RealPC, which is marketed as an
inexpensive emulator that enables you to play DOS games (or load Windows, if you
buy a separate copy from Microsoft). Table 19-3 shows a breakdown of the PC
emulation programs for Mac OS.
504 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Table 19-3
PC Emulators for the Mac OS
Company
Product
Features
Insignia
SoftWindows
Emulates Windows 3.1 on Macs and Power Macs
Insignia
SoftWindows 95
Emulates Windows 95 on Power Macs
insignia
RealPC
Emulates a Pentium PC on a Power Mac (DOS-only)
Connectix
VirtualPC
Emulates a Pentium PC, comes in Windows, Win95, and
DOS versions
In general, the lead in emulation speed and Windows performance go back and
forth between SoftWindows and Virtual PC, with innovations and improvements
coming from both camps. Both remain slow compared to hardware solutions, but
their speed is certainly improving with the availability of faster and faster Power
Macs. (Both also require second-generation or faster PowerPC processors.)
Virtual PC is better if you want to be more compatible with PC operating systems,
more flexible with drivers and games, and able to easily upgrade (to, for instance,
Windows 98 or Window NT) using the same emulation base. SoftWindows is better
if you know your main concern is running Windows programs — specifically,
business applications. SoftWindows is a tad friendly because it’s only designed to
run Windows on top of the Mac OS. That makes it a bit easier to set up for activities
such as Internet access and networking.
If your primary motivation is gaming, you'll be interested to note that both Connectix
and Insignia have rolled support for the Voodoo chipset (offered by the Techworks
PowerSD card, as discussed in Chapter 18) into their products. That means 3DFX-
optimized games running in SoftWindows, RealPC, or Virtual PC can take advantage
of the 3D acceleration offered by a Mac-based VooDoo card.
Installing emulation software
Installation of most of these emulation products is simple — you just insert the
CD-ROM or disk and double-click the installer program. With SoftWindows, you
simply follow the installer’s instructions through to the end, and then start running
the program. You’ll be asked to provide some information, such as set the size of
the hard drive, how much I^M you want SoftWindows to use, and other factors.
By default. Virtual PC will also install the OS that came with your particular
version — different Virtual PC versions come with DOS, Windows 3.1, or
Windows 95/98 — which will appear when you start up the PC emulation program.
Once that’s done, you’re free to reboot the machine and install some other OS
(see Figure 19-8).
Chapter 19 -f Dealing with DOS and VAIindows PCs 505
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Figure 19-8: Virtual PC includes controls outside the application window for you to
manipulate the program as if it were a hardware PC.
Both emulators offer controls and settings you can use to make them work better
for you. Sometimes you can hand over more system RAM to make the emulation
program faster, use fewer colors or an optimum desktop position, or even set
preferences for using the floppy drive and CD-ROM drive for PC-formatted disks.
sharing DOS and Windows Programs
One of the best ways to run Windows programs on your Mac desktop might be to
forego the extra cards and emulators and buy yourself a full-fledged PC. If you
connect the PC to your Mac network (or set up the PC so you can dial in to it with a
modem), you can use a program called Timbuktu from Farallon
(WWW .farallon. com) to access the PC.
506 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Advanced tip: Run without the Finder
After the problem of sluggish Virtual PC sessions was bandied about on the Evangelist site
and elsewhere for a while, someone finally hit on a solution: Quit the Finder first. This
works well for at least two different scenarios: You want to play games, or you need to run
a Windows (or DOS) program that requires the Mac OS to be locked out.
Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple Computer (and often lovingly referred to as '^Noz”),
wrote to the Evangelist with an example of the latter scenario, the lock-out situation: His
son, going into finals in college, was supposed to use a special software program for his
testing. The program works in Windows, effectively locking out anything but the test's basic
word processing capabilities. This system made things easier on the teacher- who didn't
have to read anyone's handwriting— but made it hard to switch to another program and
consult notes or a cheat sheet. It also made it tough for PowerBook owners like Woz's son,
as the program wasn't written for Macs.
The solution suggested to Steve and others goes like this: The Finder is simply a program.
With the correct preparation, you can quit the Finder and load Virtual PC (or SoftWindows),
giving it complete control over your Mac (or almost complete control). This gives teachers a
lock-out while boosting the performance of Virtual PC and other emulation programs quite
a bit.
There are a couple of approaches to doing this, but here is my favorite. First, you want to
create an AppleScript that will quit the Finder and load Virtual PC (or SoftWindows). In the
Script Editor program (look in your Apple Extras folder), create this very simple script:
Tell application Finder
quit
end tell
tell application Virtual PC
acti vate
end tell
Now, save that compiled script as something like "Boot VPC" and store it in the Startup
Items (disabled) folder. (When you run the script for the first time, it may ask you to locate
Virtual PC. You can run the script from the editor once, just to get that out of the way. You
can also save the script as run-only if you'd like it to avoid the Script Editor when the script
launches.)
Next, open the Extensions Manager and create a new, minimal set of System Extensions.
(Make sure Extensions Manager is one of them.) Save the set as "Boot VPC" or something
similar, and make sure you turn on the Boot VPC AppleScript as a Startup Item for that set
of extensions. Check your other sets to make sure Boot VPC wasn't accidentally turned on
in those other sets.
Finally, choose the set in Extension Manager and restart your Mac It should boot up with
minimal extensions, and instead of seeing the Finder, you should see Virtual PC or
SoftWindows. With any luck, things will even run a bit faster. (See the included CD-ROM for
FindKiller and FinderReset, AppleScripts that also can be used to quit and restart the Finder.)
Chapter 19 -f Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 507
Screen sharing
Timbuktu is a screen-sharing program through which you can view and control a
Mac, Windows, or DOS session over a network or modem connection. The other
computer’s screen appears in a window on your own desktop, enabling you to do
just about anything you could be doing if you were sitting in front of the machine
itself (see Figure 19-9).
Figure 19-9: Timbuktu enables you to control distant computers, whether they're
Macs or PCs.
The first downside to this is the speed of the Windows environment is still subject
to the speed of your network, but only for the purposes of displaying the screen.
Most of the processing happens on the actual Intel-compatible computer, making it
a fairly simple matter for you to use both the Windows machine and your Mac at
the same time, because Timbuktu doesn’t take up too much processing power.
The other problem is programs can’t do anything weird when it comes to the way
they draw to the screen, so you’ll find that some games, DOS programs, and other
nonstandard implementation may not work in a Timbuktu window.
508 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Screen swapping
The other solution to using an actual PC means you’ll really be physically using an
Intel-compatible machine (instead of accessing it over a network), but you’ll use the
same monitor and keyboard for both your PC and your Mac. A couple of solutions
exist to enable you to use the same keyboard and monitor to control two or more
computers:
♦ The Omniview from Belkin Components (wv/w . be! ki n . com) gives you control
over four or six PCs from one keyboard and monitor, and, with a special Mac
adapter, allows you to control a mix of PCs and Macs. You control the Mac
with a PS/2-style keyboard.
4- Network Technologies (vmw . networktechi nc . com) offers a rather
sophisticated switcher that controls Macs, PCs, Sun workstations, and other
minicomputers. Called the ST-4UX, this switcher enables you to use Mac, PC,
or Sun keyboards and mice, too.
^ Raritan Computer (www . ra ri tan . com) offers the Master Console, through
which you can control from 2 to 64 different computers via one keyboard and
monitor. A Mac adapter called the Guardian enables you to control both Macs
and PCs.
Summary
4- The Mac OS and Macintosh hardware are made to help you work with DOS
files, disks and removable media. Because Macs are the smaller market, it’s
generally incumbent on them to do a good job of supporting Windows and
Intel standards, and they do.
4^ With built-in and add-on software utilities, you can work with just about any
PC file format, including documents, archives, and even compressed files.
4- If you need to run DOS and Windows programs, you also have a couple of
options. The faster choice is a PC-compatibility expansion card that actually
places an Intel-compatible processor inside your Mac. You can then use the
same monitor and keyboard to run DOS and Windows programs on your
Mac’s screen.
4 You can also opt for software emulation. SoftWindows and Virtual PC are
two software products that offer Windows compatibility without requiring a
dedicated processor. They can be a bit slow compared to actual Pentium-
based processing, but they do take advantage of the growing speed of G3
processors and beyond (someday, the emulators may even be faster than
Pentium-based cards and computers). Virtual PC has the additional advantage
of being capable of running any operating system that a typical hardware
PC can.
Chapter 19 ^ Dealing with DOS and Windows PCs 509
^ If you’ve got a real Intel-compatible PC, you can share its screen over a
network and control it using a software program called Timbuktu. Or, if the
machine is sitting on your desk and you just want to be able to switch your
keyboard, mouse, and monitor back and forth between Macs and PCs, you can
do that with switch boxes from a number of different companies.
4
PowerBooks
Y ou’ll probably think I’m silly, but I’m still amazed every
time I see a PowerBook light up and start computing. It
looks just like regular computer! In most cases, PowerBooks
are eight pounds or less, feature a good keyboard, a way to
mouse around, plenty of ports, internal expansion, and a glow-
in-the-dark screen — all the same stuff you can get on a
desktop computer. And, these days, PowerBooks are even as
powerful as regular desktop computers.
PowerBooks are a tad more limited; specifically, they have
fewer ports and usually very few internal upgrading options.
When put up against comparable desktop computers,
PowerBooks usually have slightly smaller hard drives, slightly
.slower video, and can generally accept a little less RAM. Up
until very recently, you probably wouldn’t have bought a
PowerBook if your primary work centered around working
with Photoshop, QuarkXPress, or 3D animation. You still might
not buy a PowerBook for those tasks, but that scenario is
becoming much more likely.
Of course, if you already have a PowerBook, you know all this.
What you’re probably more interested in doing is getting that
PowerBook to do more stuff for you: compute better, faster or
communicate with more peripherals. Chances are, you can get
all that accomplished.
4 ^ > 4 ^ 4 ^
In This Chapter
Upgrading your
PowerBook
Plug it in: docks,
bays, slots, and
batteries
External ports and
peripherals
SCSI Disk Mode
4 ^ > 4 4 ^
In this chapter, I’ll take you on a whirlwind tour through the
various accessories and add-ons you can come across for
your PowerBook. If you’ve got a PowerBook already or you’re
thinking about getting one, you’ll enjoy this chapter, which
shows you how to upgrade them and what’s possible with a
souped-up PowerBook.
512 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Upgrading Your PowerBook
You’ll find that PowerBooks and PowerBook upgrades are often more expensive
than upgrades for desktop Macs. Part of that is because so much design work goes
into each PowerBook — somehow, everything has to fit, spin, avoid catching on fire,
and continue to compute in that little box. Usually that means using cutting-edge,
miniaturized technologies that are beyond the typical components you’ll find in
desktop computers — both in technology and in price.
It also means that the upgrades tend to be a bit more proprietary. RAM, for
instance, often has to be designed not only for PowerBooks, but often the RAM has
to be made just for a particular PowerBook model. As that’s the case, the RAM can’t
benefit from the economies of scale that usually affect desktop RAM prices;
because desktop Macs share RAM designs even with Intel-compatible PCs, a lot of
the same RAM can be manufactured and sold, keeping the price reasonable.
You’ll still find PowerBook RAM modules at a decent price, but don’t be surprised if
that price doubles the price of regular RAM. It’s just going to cost a tad more. The
same is true of other components, such as processor upgrades, new hard drives,
and internal modems or networking solutions.
Other than the price, though, you’ll find that PowerBook upgrades come in two
basic categories — blissfully easy and somewhat messy. Certain models —
PowerBook 5300, 1400, 2400, 3400, G3, or higher — include PC Card slots (also
called PCMCIA slots) that make adding a number of different upgrades (RAM,
modems, Ethernet, hard drives) pretty easy to do. In most cases, you stick the card
in and add the functionality. (These cards are discussed in detail in the next section
of this chapter.)
If you won’t be upgrading using a PC Card, things can get a bit messier. You’ll have
to open the PowerBook’s case, which can be quite a study in engineering itself.
Next, you’ll need to get the right parts and install them correctly. First things first,
though. Table 20-1 shows the PowerBook chart for internal upgrades (there’s
another one later in this chapter for port info and external upgrades).
Table 20-1
PowerBook Internal Upgrades
Model #
Processor
Megahertz
Processor
Upgrade?
Form
Factor
Slots
100
68000
16
No
PB 100
Modem
140
68030
16
No
PB 140
Modem
145/145B
68030
25
No
PB 140
Modem
150
68030
33
No
PB 140
Modem
160
68030
25
No
PB 140
Modem
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 513
Model #
Processor
Megahertz
Processor
Upgrade?
Form
Factor
Slots
165
68030
33
No
PB 140
Modem
165c
68030
(w/FPU)
33
No
PB 140
Modem
170
68030
(w/FPU)
25
No
PB 140
Modem
180/ 180c
68030
(w/FPU)
33
No
PB 140
Modem
190/66
68LC040
66
Logic board
to 5300
PB 5300
Two Type II PC
Card
Duo 210
68030
25
Logic board
to 2300
PB Duo
Modem, dock
Duo 230
68030
33
Logic board
to 2300
PB Duo
Modem, dock
Duo 250
68030
33
Logic board
to 2300
PB Duo
Modem, dock
Duo 270c
68030
(w/FPU)
33
Logic board
to 2300
PB Duo
Modem, dock
Duo 280/c
68LC040
66
Logic board
to 2300
PB Duo
Modem, dock
Duo 2300
PPC 603e
100
No
PB Duo
Modem, dock
520/520C
68LC040
50
Card to PPC
PB 500
Modem, PC
cage’
540/540C
68LC040
66
Card to PPC
PB 500
Modem, PC
cage’
550c
68040
66
Card to PPC
PB 500
Modem, PC
cage'
1400
PPC
603e
117/133/
166
Third-party card
PB 1400
Two Type II PC
Cards, comm'
2400c
PP C 603e
180/250
Third-party card
PB 2400
Two Type II
PC Cards
3400c
PPC 603e
180/200/
240
No
PB 3400
Two Type II PC
Cards
5300
PPC 603e
100/117
No
PB 5300
Two Type II
PC Cards
C continued)
514 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Table 20-1 (continued)
Model #
Processor
Megahertz
Processor
Upgrade?
Form
Factor
Slots
G3 (3500)
PPG 750
250
No
PB 3400
Two Type 11
PG Gards
G3 (BTO)
PPG 750
225, 250,
292
No
PB G3
Two Type II
PG Gards
1 The 500 series can accept a PCMCIA card cage as a substitute for one of its two battery-expansion bays. It can
then access PC Card upgrades.
2 The communications slot on the 1400 can accept an Apple video-out card or an Ethernet card.
Although there’s a rumor that upgrade cards may become available for the
PowerBook 3400 and 5300 series, they’re not available as of the writing of this book.
The PowerBook 1400 series can accept upgrade cards that extend them to 183MHz
603e processors, or they can accept a G3 upgrade card, which has been announced
by NewerTech (and some other companies). Check NewerTech’s Web site
(WWW. newer tech .com) and this book’s Web site for continued reports.
Notice that two versions of the PowerBook G3 are listed. The original PowerBook
G3 was based on the PowerBook 3400 form factor and is sometimes referred to as
the 3500 series. The second PowerBook G3 series are the first models available
under the Apple Store build-toorder system: This means Apple doesn’t necessarily
sell them in standard configurations, but can add or subtract components
according to individual orders as the machines are being built. There is an
expectation that these G3 models will be processor upgradeable, but nothing has
been announced.
Although there's no official kit (or official support) for it, you can swap the logic
boards in earlier PowerBooks to increase the speed. In the PowerBooks that use the
PowerBook 140 form factor, it's possible to swap logic boards to add life to an aging
machine. That's beyond the scope of the book, if only because it's tough to come up
with a great reason to do it; with today's modern software, there's little advantage to
moving from a 25MHz 68030 to a 33MHz 68030. And to do it, you'll probably have to
buy the faster PowerBook anyway. Therefore, unless it's got a bad screen or other
trouble, there's not too much point in trying to upgrade one machine's logic board for
the other's. Just use the better machine. If you need a replacement logic board,
though, try DT&T Service at www. dttservi ce . com/ Power book . html on the Web
along with the usual used market suspects.
Chapter 20 > PowerBooks 515
Opening your PowerBook
We’re fortunate in this respect: Apple has used basically nine different PowerBook
form factors over the life of the portable’s line, so it’s pretty easy to pin down the
specifics of each. What governs how you’ll open yours is the form factor of the
machine, as detailed in Table 20-1. The text that follows will include a quick
discussion of what’s required to get a particular PowerBook model opened, along
with a photo of the PowerBook being opened.
Apple is a little wishy-washy about whether they really want you opening your
PowerBook to add RAM. They make it easy to do, with diagrams all over the place
and tantalizing references to all the upgrades you can add to the PowerBook, but
then they tell you that the/d prefer you consult an Apple Authorized Dealer for instal-
lation. What should you do? If you’re under warranty, Td recommend reading the
arranty and your manual to see If opening your PowerBook voids the warranty. If it
doesn't, upgrade away. If upgrading will void your warranty, then do so at your
own risk.
PowerBook 100
Models include: PowerBook 100
The PowerBook 100 requires a TIO Torx screwdriver to remove its screws. Here’s
how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory upgrade slot (the only upgrade
possible with this model) (refer also to Figure 20-1):
Figure 20-1: Opening the PowerBook 100
516 Part II 4 - Performing the Upgrade
1. Shut clown the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery (slide the battery door to the right, and then pull
the battery out of the computer). Also, take out the backup batteries in the
rear compartment of the PowerBook 100.
3. Remove the three rubber pads on the underside of the PowerBook. You’ll find
screws underneath the pads. Remove the screws.
4. With the machine right-side up, open the display. Lift the display and pull it off
the base, but don’t disconnect it from the rest of the machine.
5. Lift the keyboard up off the computer and lay it down on the display panel.
Don’t disconnect it from the rest of the PowerBook.
To put the PowerBook back together, replace the keyboard first, and then the
screen. Next, reinstall the screws on the bottom of the PowerBook. If everything
seems solid, hook up the battery and power cable, start up the Mac, and test it.
PowerBook 140 form factor
Models include: PowerBook 140, 145, 145B, 150, 160, 165, 165c, 170, 180, 180c
The PowerBook 140 form factor requires both a T8 and a TIO Torx screwdriver to
remove its screws. Here’s how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory-
upgrade slot (see also Figure 20-2):
Chapter 20 > PowerBooks 517
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery by sliding the battery door to the right, and then
pulling the battery out of the computer.
3. On the underside of the PowerBook, remove the four recessed screws using
the TIO Torx screwdriver.
4. Open the rear access door and remove the T8 Torx screw next to the SCSI
port.
5. With the PowerBook upside down and the rear facing you, lift the bottom of
the PowerBook until you see a cable connecting the two halves of the
PowerBook. While holding the casing open, disconnect the cable from the
section you’re lifting (the PowerBook’s true bottom).
6. Continue to lift until the section you’re lifting separates from the keyboard
section of the PowerBook. Rotate and flip the section you’re lifting so that it
lies exposed on the table.
To put this type of PowerBook form factor back together, place the bottom section
of the PowerBook back on the upside-down top section, aligning the tabs on the
front edge of the PowerBook (the front edge is where the screen latch is). With the
tabs aligned, lower the bottom section until it’s close enough to plug the cable into,
and then connect the cable. Lower the casing the rest of the way, and reinstall all
the screws. If everything looks good, turn the PowerBook over, replace the battery
and power, and start up the Mac to test it.
PowerBook Duo form factor
Models include: PowerBook Duo 210, 230, 250, 270c, 280, 280c, 2300
Mac Evangelista tip: Your PowerBook screws
Mac Evangelista Lisa Devlin notes that her PowerBook has often been accused of having a
screw loose. This seems to be particularly true as a PowerBook ages:
"Models with keyboard screws, that is, the 140-180 series, should be checked at least once
a year, and more often if the PowerBook is used heavily or If you're a violent typist. If the
screws are not tightened regularly, they can wiggle loose and damage other parts of the
PowerBook, including the logic board and disk drive."
518 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
The PowerBook Duo form factor requires a T8 Torx screwdriver to remove its
screws. Here’s how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory-upgrade slot
(refer also to Figure 20-3):
Figure 20-3: Opening the PowerBook Duo series of PowerBooks
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery by sliding the battery door to the right, and then
pulling the battery out of the computer.
3. On the underside of the PowerBook, remove the three keyboard screws using
the T8 Torx screwdriver. (Don’t remove the fourth screw, which is closest to
the front of the machine.)
4. With the PowerBook right-side up, open the screen. Now place your hand on
the PowerBook’s keyboard (it’s been loosened and will fall out). Lift the back
of the PowerBook so that you rotate the PowerBook toward its front, causing
the keyboard to fall into your hand.
5. Don’t remove or damage the cables that connect the keyboard to the
computer. Gently put the PowerBook back upright and lay the keyboard down
on the front wrist-rest section of the PowerBook.
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 519
Putting these PowerBook Duos back together is pretty easy. Just gently place the
keyboard back in its place, close the screen, and turn the Duo over. Replace the
keyboard screws. If everything looks good, add the battery and power supply, and
start up the Mac to test it.
PowerBook 500 form factor
Models include; PowerBook 520, 520c, 540, 540c, 550
The PowerBook 500 form factor requires a T8 Torx screwdriver to remove its
screws. Here’s how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory-upgrade and
processor-card upgrade slot (see Figure 20-4):
Figure 20-4: Opening the PowerBook 500 series of PowerBooks
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the battery or both batteries, if installed. Remove the PCMCIA cage
(PC Card cage) if it’s installed. (Remove these by sliding the grooved slider
toward the front of the PowerBook, and then pop the battery out.)
3. On the underside of the PowerBook, remove the two (most deeply recessed)
keyboard screws using the T8 Torx screwdriver. Don’t remove the other
screws.
4. Open the rear access door and remove the two T8 Torx screws located on
either side of the serial number label.
520 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
5. With the PowerBook right-side up, open the screen. Lift the keyboard up from
the PowerBook, but don’t disconnect its cables. Place it on the front wrist-rest
of the PowerBook.
6. Push slightly forward and pull up on the plastic strip near the screen’s hinge
to remove it.
7. Remove the three heat-shield screws. (One screw is located beneath where
the plastic strip was installed.)
8. Remove the heat shield. If you’re upgrading RAM, remove the plastic holder
that sits over the RAM slot.
When you put the PowerBook 500 form factor back together, you’ll need to take
care, especially around the RAM module, which can be delicate. Slide the plastic
holder over the RAM module (if you’ve installed one) and replace it in its original
position. Next, replace the heat shield and its three screws. (This is a delicate
process, so be patient. The heat shield can be difficult to get back in place.) Replace
the plastic strip and then the keyboard. Close the screen. Replace the screws on the
back of the PowerBook, and then the screws on the bottom.
If everything looks good, add the battery and power supply, start up the Mac, and
test it.
Mac Evangelista tip: Upgrading 500 series
Mac Evangelista Philip Accas has a love-hate relationship with his PowerBook 500 series
machines. Apparently he loves to upgrade them, but hates some of the pain that comes
with the process. (As you can tell, PowerBook 500 upgrades can be a little tricky; I certainly
recommend you have a dealer look at the PowerBook for you if any of this seems confus-
ing or tough to accomplish.) Here are some tips he's gleaned from his 500 series experi-
ences:
To add RAM or other components to a 500 series PowerBook, you must first remove the
keyboard and the little plastic strip immediately behind it that screws into the back of the
PowerBook, behind the flip-down door. This strip needs to come out because it covers the
last screw you need to unscrew to remove the cover, allowing you to access the CPU/RAM.
'Tip 1 is this: Make sure something about 2-inches high (a hardback book, for example) is
behind the PowerBook, bend the screen back until it just about touches this support, and
then loosen both screen hinge screws about two turns. This gives you enough room to eas-
ily extract (and replace) the plastic strip without removing the screen completely.
(continued)
Chapter 20 4- PowerBooks 521
(continued)
"After getting inside the PowerBook, you still have to remove the perforated metal piece
that covers the CPU daughterboard/RAM/modem area. Two of the screws thread into a thin
plastic support that 'clips' around the RAM module. Once you've removed the screws, you'll
need to extract the screwholder to access the RAM module. Unfortunately, that screwholder
can be tough to get out.
"So, Tip 2 is this: Bend out a side panel -the one that separates the RAM/CPU middle sec-
tion from the floppy and hard drive sections -and its restraining tab slightly. Move the plas-
tic screwholder towards the back of the PowerBook just a bit; this should free one side of
the plastic screwholder. Bend the other metal side panel out, and with your other hand, slip
the plastic screwholder off the RAM card entirely. You should now be able to pull the RAM
straight up using a chip-puller. You'll also be able to get to the CPU daughtercard.
'To reinstall, slip the plastic piece onto the RAM module first, and then bend a metal side
panel (with the restraining tabs) out slightly, inserting one side of the screwholder under
the metal tab. Bend the other metal side/tab out and, with your other hand, position the
RAM module and screwholder right above the RAM connection socket Press straight down
until it clicks, and release the second side; both metal tabs should be holding the plastic
screwholder down and in place -a little wiggling may be necessary to achieve this."
PowerBook 5300 form factor
Models include: PowerBook 190, 190cs, 5300 series
The PowerBook 5300 form factor requires a T8 Torx screwdriver to remove its
screws. Here’s how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory upgrade slot
(refer to Figure 20-5):
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery.
3. On the underside of the PowerBook, remove the three recessed keyboard
screws using the T8 Torx screwdriver.
4. With the PowerBook right-side up, gently open the screen to a wide angle.
Now, place your hand on the PowerBook’s keyboard (it’s been loosened and
will fall out). Lift the back of the PowerBook so that you rotate the PowerBook
toward its front, causing the keyboard to fall into your hand.
5. Don’t remove or damage the cables that connect the keyboard to the
computer. Gently put the PowerBook back upright and lay the keyboard down
very gently on the bottom half of the screen, with keycaps facing up. (You
may want to place a clean, dry towel over the screen to protect it.)
522 Part II Performing the Upgrade
Figure 20-5: Opening the PowerBook 5300 series of PowerBooks
Putting the PowerBook 5300 form factor back together is pretty easy. Just gently
place the keyboard back in place, close the screen, and turn the 5300 over. Replace
the keyboard screws. If everything looks good, add the battery and power supply
and start up the Mac to test it.
PowerBook 1400 form factor
Models include: PowerBook 1400 series
The PowerBook 1400 series is fairly simple to open for upgrading: It requires only a
small Phillips-head screwdriver to remove its screws. Here’s how to open the
PowerBook and expose its memory and internal upgrade slot (see Figure 20-6):
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery. (Push the release on the bottom of the battery to
pop it out of the left-front bay.)
3. Gently open the screen wide. Slide the speaker grille above the keyboard
slightly to the left, and then pull up on the grille. (It may take a little power to
release the grille.)
4. Place your finger under the metal guard at the top edge of the keyboard (it’s
actually part of the keyboard). Lift up on the keyboard until it comes free.
(This will take some maneuvering, but not much strength.) Place the keyboard
upside down on the wrist rest. Don’t disconnect its cable.
5. Remove the five or six screws from the heat shield that’s exposed when you
remove the grille. Lift the heat shield out of the PowerBook.
Chapter 20 4 PowerBooks 523
Figure 20-6: Opening the PowerBook 1400 series of PowerBooks
\
To put the PowerBook 1400 back together, just reverse the process. Screw the metal
heat shield back into place (the longer screws go in the rearmost holes). Place the
keyboard gently back into place, and then cover its top with the speaker grille
(begin with the grille slightly offset to the left), sliding it to the right to secure it. If
everything looks good, replace the battery and/or power supply, start up the Mac,
and test it.
If you're installing an internal expansion card, you'll need to pop off the plastic cover
for the internal expansion port (on the back of the PowerBook) using a flathead
screwdriver. Once the card is installed, you'll need to screw the expansion card into
the PowerBook from the rear, using the connector holes on either side of the port
opening.
PowerBook 2400 form factor
Models include: PowerBook 2400 series
The PowerBook 2400 series is very difficult to open for upgrading — so much so, in
fact, that ril go along with a number of other experts and recommend against trying
to upgrade it yourself. Although Apple recommends against upgrading any
PowerBook, its engineers make some of them pretty easy to get into. The
PowerBook 2400 is a wonderful example of an instance in which that’s not the case.
Although the PowerBook 2400 does take fairly standard RAM modules (making that
part of the upgrade enticing), I’d say that the chance of marring the plastic or losing
a screw is too high, especially compared to other PowerBook models. In most cases
I’d recommend handing this one over to an authorized service center.
524 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
If you’re still interested, thouj^h, here’s the process you have to go through to open
a PowerBook 2400 (see also Figure 20-7). You’ll need a small flathead screwdriver
and a small Phillips-head screwdriver:
Figure 20-7: Opening the PowerBook 2400 series of PowerBooks
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery.
3. Locate the two small screw covers on each side of the screen bezel at the top
of the keyboard. Remove the covers by prying them up with a flathead
screwdriver with a very thin blade, and remove the two screws found under
those covers using a small Phillips-head screwdriver.
4. Remove the bezel itself using a flathead screwdriver to release the two tabs
holding the bezel in place. One tab is located over the F3 key; the other is
over the FI 2 key.
5. Using your index fingers, slide the top section of the PowerBook gently away
from the screen. You should only slide it back far enough to expose the ribbon
cable that’s connecting the top section to the logic board.
6. Remove the ribbon cable connecting this top section to the logic board. A
small flathead screwdriver can be used to release the two small tabs that
fasten the ribbon to the logic board. Remove the top section.
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 525
7. The keyboard has six screws, which need to be removed. There are three
gold screws along the top and three black screws along the bottom of the
keyboard. Remove them with the Phillips-head screwdriver.
8. Flip the keyboard up so that it rests against the bottom of the PowerBook’s
screen. (You may want to use a soft towel between the two to keep the screen
safe.) Do not disconnect the ribbon cables for the keyboard.
9. To access the RAM upgrade slots, locate the metal heat shield that covers the
RAM slot found near the lower-left corner of the PowerBook. Remove the two
screws on the left side of the heat shield, and then remove the shield.
A bit tricky, eh? To put it back together, reverse the process. Note that there are
quite a few screws to keep track of; try to keep the colors of the screws right and
put them back in the holes they came from. You should also decide before
continuing whether or not it’s going to be too much of a sleight-of-hand maneuver
for you to plug the top section of the PowerBook back into the logic board with the
benefit of only a screwdriver and some ingenuity. If that’s too much pressure, abort
the mission and take the PowerBook to an authorized service center for a quick
upgrade.
PowerBook 3400 form factor
Models include: PowerBook 3400 series, G3 (3500)
The PowerBook 3400 form factor requires a T8 Torx screwdriver to remove its
screws. Here’s how to open the PowerBook and expose its memory upgrade slot
(see also Figure 20-8):
1. Shut down the PowerBook, and remove all cords and cables to external
peripherals. Ground yourself.
2. Remove the main battery. (A slider on the bottom of the PowerBook will
release the battery.)
3. On the underside of the PowerBook, completely loosen the three recessed
keyboard screws using the T8 Torx screwdriver. Turn the PowerBook over so
that the screws fall out.
4. With the PowerBook right side up, gently open the screen to a wide angle.
Now lift up very slightly (no more than 1/4-inch) on both the right and left
side of the front end of the keyboard.
5. Pull the keyboard very slightly toward the front of the PowerBook until the
small tabs on the back edge of the keyboard come free from the case.
6. Don’t remove or damage the cables that connect the keyboard to the
computer. Very gently place the keyboard down on the bottom half of the
screen with keycaps facing up. (It’s recommended that you place a clean, dry
towel over the screen to protect it.)
526 Part II 4^ Performing the Upgrade
Figure 20-8: Opening the PowerBook 3400 series of PowerBooks
If the PowerBook has been plugged in and/or turned on recently, make sure you
avoid touching the heat sink, the metal section located in the center of the exposed
area in the PowerBook. It can get very hot.
Putting the PowerBook 3400 form factor back together is pretty easy. Just gently
place the keyboard back In the case, making sure to angle it in carefully to fit the
tabs into the back of the keyboard opening in the case. Lower the keyboard into its
slot. Close the screen and turn the PowerBook over. Replace the keyboard screws.
If everything looks good, add the battery and/or power cable, start up the Mac, and
test it.
PowerBook G3 form factor
Models Include: PowerBook G3 (BTO) series
The PowerBook G3 BTO series is very simple to open for upgrading — all it requires
is a Phillips-head screwdriver. Here’s the procedure (also refer to Figure 20-9):
1. Unplug the PowerBook, ground yourself, and pull the front-mounted
expansion bay release levers toward you to release the battery and/or devices
that are in the expansion bays. Remove those devices.
2. Reach into the device bays and pull back the spring-loaded tabs to release the
PowerBook’s keyboard.
3. Remove the two Phillips-head screws that secure the heat shield. Remove the
heat shield to gain access to the RAM upgrade slots and processor
daughtercard.
Chapter 20 ^ PowerBooks 527
Figure 20-9: Opening the PowerBook G3 Build-to-Order series
Simply reverse the process to put the PowerBook back together — screw on the
heat shield and snap the keyboard back into place.
Upgrading RAM
Aside from getting the PowerBook open, you’ll also need to explore the various
requirements for the RAM in your particular PowerBook. I’ve got another chart for
you in this section to help explain these requirements.
In just about every case you’ll have one available slot for upgrading; fortunately,
PowerBook RAM modules can be installed one module at a time. (Makes sense, eh?)
In the PowerBook 1400, unlike most others, you can stack memory modules on top
of one another, which enables you to add two modules to the one slot. In the G3
(BTO) series, the PowerBook has two available SO-DIMM slots. The base RAM is
installed in one of those slots and the other is available for upgrading.
If your Mac is currently showing more RAM in the About this Computer dialog box
than the model’s base amount listed in Table 20-2, then you probably already have
an upgrade module installed in the Mac. In that case, you’ll have to replace the
existing module (unless it’s in a PowerBook 1400), so make sure you buy a module
with a much higher capacity than the module that’s currently in the upgrade slot —
otherwise the upgrade won’t be very much use. For instance, if you have a Duo 210
with a total of SMB of RAM, the upgrade slot is taken by a 4MB module. You’ll want
to get a larger module (at least SMB) to make up for replacement of the 4MB
module.
528 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Table 20-2
PowerBook RAM Upgrades
Mode!
Base RAM
Max. RAM
Type
Speed
Module Sizes
100/140/145
2MB
SMB
PBIOO
100 ns
2-, 4-, 6MB
145B
4MB
SMB
PBIOO
100 ns
2-, 4MB
150
4MB
40MB
Duo
70 ns
4-, 8-, 2-,
36MB
160/1 65/1 65c
180/1 80c
4MB
14MB
PBIOO
85 ns
2-, 4-, 10MB
170
2MB
8MB
PBIOO
100 ns
2-, 4-, 6MB
190/190CS
4MB'
36MB’
PB5300
70 ns
4-32MB
Duo 210, 230,
250
4MB
24MB
Duo
70 ns
4-20MB
Duo 270c
4MB
32MB
Duo
70 ns
4-28MB
Duo 280/280C
4MB
40MB
Duo
70 ns
4-36MB
500 series
4MB’
36M’
PB500
70 ns
4-, 8-, 12-,
20-, 32MB
1400 series
16MB^
64MB'
PB1400
70 ns
8-24MB
Duo 2300
8MB
56MB
Duo
70 ns
4-48MB
2400 series
16MB
144MB
SO-DIMM
60 ns
16-128MB
3400 series
16MB
144MB
PB3400
60 ns
4-1 28MB
5300 series
8MB^
64MB
PB5300
70 ns
8-64MB
G3 (3500)
32MB
160MB
PB G3
60 ns
4-1 28MB
G3 (BTO)
32MB'
192MB
SO-DIMM
N/A
16-1 28MB
1 Some later model 190 series PowerBooks came with 8MB of base RAM, increasing the maximum to 40MB.
2 Installing a PowerPC upgrade card in a PowerBook 500 series raises the base RAM to 8MB (because 8MB of
RAM is soldered on the card, but the 4MB on the logic board is disabled), resulting in a new maximum of 40MB
of RAM.
3 Early 1400cs/1 17 models came with 12MB of base RAM, reducing its maximum to 60MB.
4 Later models of the 5300c and 5300cs came with 16MB of base RAM. The 5300ce came with 16MB of base
RAM and a 16MB upgrade in the available RAM slot.
5 At the time of writing, some build-to-order C3 models include 64MB of RAM installed in one of the two
available SO-DIMM slots.
Chapter 20 4- PowerBooks 529
With the exception of the G3 BTO and 2400 series of PowerBooks, which use
small outline DIMMs (SO DIMMS) — a smaller version of standard DIMMs that
have become popular for notebook computer memory — every single one of these
PowerBooks requires a special type of RAM module designed to fit their respective
form factors. When shopping for RAM, make sure you get the right type.
In general, you’ll need to be careful with these RAM modules, as they often have
fragile connectors and pins that can be quite different from desktop RAM modules.
You should also be very sensitive to the possibility of static electricity discharge
when working inside a PowerBook — wear a grounding strap before adding RAM.
Remember, PowerBook logic boards and components tend to be much more
expensive that desktop logic boards.
Cross- ^ To learn more about RAM in general, see the desktop RAM discussion in Chapter 6. If
Referenc^ you're interested in upgrading your PowerBook soon, you should also immediately
download the Apple Memory Guide PDF (Adobe Portable Document Format) from
Apple's Support Web site (www.apple.com/support), which includes not only
memory requirements but diagrams and instructions for installing RAM in various
PowerBook models.
Internal slots
Not all PowerBooks have internal slots (see Table 20-1 to see if yours does), and
those that do can usually only accept very specific add-ons. The PowerBook 1400
has exactly three upgrade cards that can be added to its internal slot: a video-out
card from Apple, an Ethernet card from Focus Enhancements
(WWW. focusi nfo . com), and a 16-bit video-out card available from Newer
Technology (www . newertech . com). Figure 20-10 shows a PowerBook 1400 being
upgraded with the Apple video-out card.
With other models, such as the PowerBook 500 series, only the PowerPort Mercury
19.2 modem from Global Village was ever made available for internal upgrading.
The Duo series could also be upgraded with a special Global Village Mercury
modem. The PowerBook 100 series can be upgraded by a number of different
PowerPort modems designed specifically for that PowerBook 100 series. Apple and
Supra (www.diamondmm.com) also made internal modems for the PowerBook 100
series, including a Supra modem that runs at 33.6 Kbps.
530 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Figure 20-10: The PowerBook 1400's internal slot is right next to
the RAM upgrade slot so that its port can line up with the others
on the back of the notebook.
Unfortunately, none of these modems remains available for retail sale. If you’re
interested in an internal modem for a non-PowerPC PowerBook, you’ll need to shop
the used market.
Aside from the used Mac and PowerBook Usenet newsgroups (comp . sys . mac .
forsale, comp. sys .mac. wanted, comp. forsale. computers. mac) and your
local classifieds, you may have luck finding PowerBook parts at www. si ri us . com/
'-exupery/forsal e. htm1 or www.macresq . com.
Most of these internal slots include an internal connector and an external port on
the back of the PowerBook. You’ll usually need to pry a plastic cover off that back
port opening, and secure the card to the back of the PowerBook once it’s been
installed. The cards themselves are considerably smaller than NuBus or PCI cards
and tend to use a miniaturized, completely nonstandard connnector between the
card and the logic board. The connectors are apt to be delicate, so be very careful
when you’re installing internal PowerBook components (see Figure 20-11).
Along with the cards, you’ll likely need a software extension and other driver
software that lets the PowerBook know that it’s been enhanced. Those drivers
should come on a floppy disk or two included with the upgrade card. Install those
after you’ve installed the card and sealed up the Mac.
Chapter 20 PowerBooks 531
Figure 20-11: Here's the available slot in a PowerBook 140 form
factor.
Again, Apple doesn't really encourage upgrading your own PowerBook, and may not
pay for repairs if something goes wrong, even if the PowerBook is under warranty.
Consult your manual if you're concerned that you may not be able to perform the
upgrade yourself. Such service shouldn't be too expensive.
Processor upgrades
There isn’t a slot in processor-upgradeable PowerBooks for the small daughtercard
that boosts its processing speed. In most cases, you just replace the PowerBook's
original processor, often using a small card that includes the new processor and
any other components it needs to function, such as cache RAM. (The exception to
this rule is the G3 BTO series, which does put its processor on a daughtercard but
which, according to Apple, is officially non-upgradeable, as mentioned below.)
Installing a processor upgrade is a very delicate operation in many cases, requiring
patience and close adherence to the instructions that come with the upgrade. In
particular, you should be very careful when pulling processor chips and plugging
chips into processor sockets. These chips feature hundreds of tiny pins that can
bend or break very easily. If that happens, you may have lost a single component
worth hundreds of dollars.
The upgradeable PowerBooks include the PowerBook 500 series, PowerBook 1400,
PowerBook 2400 and the G3 BTO series, although Apple officially says the BTO
series isn’t upgradeable.
532 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
Apple presumably doesn't certify their systems as upgradeable these days because
they lost a lawsuit a few years back, requiring them to provide a special upgrade
because the company had advertised some Performa models as "upgradeable." Be
that as it may, the G3 BTO series is built around a removable daughtercard that will
likely entice some company to build an upgrade for faster processors in the future.
Table 20-3 shows the potential upgrades.
Table 20-3
Processor Upgradeable PowerBooks
PowerBook Mode! Upgrade(s)
Company
500 series
PowerPC 603e/100
Apple
PowerPC 603e/167
Newer Technology
PowerPC 603e/183
Newer Technology
1400 series
PowerPC 603e/183
Newer Technology
PowerPC C3/216
Newer Technology
PowerPC C3/250
Newer Technology
2400 series
PowerPC G3/240
Newer Technology
Evangelista tip: Speed up more than the CPU
It isn't tough to find people who were pleased that they could bump up the speed on their
PowerBooks from earlier PowerPC processors into the realm of G3 speeds. But Dr. Ronald
D. Leppke found even more to be pleased about:
"In the general area of PowerBook upgrades, I am just delighted with the NUpowr G3
upgrade from Newer for my PowerBook 1400. I have the 250MHz version, which is very
fast, as expected.
'"What surprised me, however, was an improvement in download speeds. Because I am
connected via a cable modem, I was already seeing 115 Kbps download speeds. But, after
the upgrade, I watched as large files downloaded to my PowerBook in seconds, with an
indicated speed as high as 263 Kbps. Productivity per hour has just taken a very significant
jump."
Chapter 20 > PowerBooks 533
Adding a hard drive
Adding a hard drive to your PowerBook certainly isn’t impossible, although it
involves some minor surgery. Aside from getting your Mac opened up and ready for
upgrading, you’ll also need to get the old hard drive out of there and get a new one
to put in its place. Probably most important is buying the right upgrade drive for
the task.
The type of drive you need for your PowerBook depends on the model of the
PowerBook you want and how large a hard drive you feel you need. If you have a
PowerBook in the 100 series (aside from the 150), a 500 series PowerBook, or a Duo
model (with the exception of a Duo 2300 originally equipped with a 1.1GB drive),
you’ve got a SCSI internal drive, so you’ll need a SCSI replacement.
The best bet you have for buying one of these drives is buying a true, 2.5-inch SCSI
drive with Apple ROMs built in. (You don’t have to buy an Apple ROM drive,
although such drives are easier to work with, especially when upgrading the Mac
OS and troubleshooting system softwcire. Other SCSI drives will work, but they
require third-party driver software such as FWB Toolkit.) In general, you should
have luck finding drives in 800MB, 1.0GB and 1.2GB capacities that have SCSI
interfaces and Apple ROMs, as well as smaller drives such as those that came in
older PowerBook models. PowerBook Duo models require a drive that’s 17 mm in
height. Most other PowerBook models require a hard drive that’s 19 mm in height.
You may occasionally find a repurposed IDE drive that’s been given a SCSI interface;
although I won’t tell you to stay away from these drives (especially if you get good
instructions for installing the drive and a liberal return policy) 1 will say you’ll
probably see a performance hit as a result of using one of these drives. That’s
usually a trade-off people are willing to make because of the potential to put a high-
capacity drive (1- or 2GB in some cases) in their aging PowerBook.
Most other PowerBooks — the 150, 190, 5300-series, 1400-series, 3400, 2400, and G3
models — all include IDE drives. (The Duo 2300 with a 1.1GB drive also shipped
with an internal IDE interface.) In most cases, these drives can be upgraded with
most off-the-shelf 2.5” IDE-compatible drives, although in some cases (such as the
1400 series) you’ll specifically need a “thin” 2.5” IDE drive.
This is actually really good news; large-capacity IDE drives are very affordable, even
in 2.5-inch capacities, because many of them are made for Intel-compatible
notebooks as well as for PowerBooks. Very few other notebook computers used 2.5-
inch SCSI drives, making them more difficult to come by.
534 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Mac Components Engineered (www.powerbookl .com) is an excellent resource for
getting information about and buying replacement hard drives for PowerBook com-
puters. Although I haven't used them myself, I've heard excellent things about their
ability to help with installation instructions and kits to get the job done. Another
resource that seems to be good is Other World Computing (www.macsales.com).
If you buy a new IDE drive for your PowerBook, it’ll need to be, physically, an exact
replacement for your existing drive, including the screws and mounting brackets. If
you can’t get the drive to fit in the PowerBook, you may want to consult the dealer
or return it for one that will fit in your particular PowerBook. While installing, make
sure you hang onto all the screws you removed to get the original drive out,
because you’ll need them for the new drive. (The PowerBook 2400, according to
Apple and Mac Components Engineered, features some 20-plus screws to remove
the internal drive. It’s recommended that you have that particular Mac serviced if
you’d like a replacement hard drive.)
Once you have the drive installed in your PowerBook, boot from a floppy or a
System CD-ROM to format the disk with Drive Setup. (If you order a drive from a
Mac-centric dealer, it may come preformatted for use on a Mac.) You’ll then need to
install the Mac OS on the drive to use it as the startup disk. Drive Setup can format
and deal with many different IDE drives, although the brand names (IBM, Toshiba,
Hitachi) might be the smarter choices.
Screen upgrades and replacements
Many PowerBook models can actually have their screens updated to show more
colors or be a little larger, especially if the PowerBook in question shares its
heritage with a more advanced model (such as the PowerBook Duo 230 and Duo
270c, for instance).
You’ll also want to swap the screen if it shows any dead pixels (pixels that always
glow while when the screen is turned on) or stuck pixels (which are always black
when the screen is on). Stuck pixels are especially disconcerting, because they
drain power. (A black, gray, or colored pixel requires power, because it’s “on,”
whereas a white pixel doesn’t draw power.) Backlighting needs to be turned on on
many recent models for these errors to appear.
If your PowerBook is still under warranty, you should consult Apple to see if the
company will replace the screen. Reports have it that Apple often will replace these
screens if the problem is a manufacturing or packaging defect.
Apple rarely recommends replacing these screens on your own, and 1 pretty much
have to agree. The screen bezels, plastics, and components are complicated, easy
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 535
to break, and rather expensive. Screens also need to be handled in a completely
static-free environment and need to be carefully placed and inst 2 dled. A number of
companies and authorized Apple dealers will swap screens for you at a reasonable
cost, so rd recommend looking into those services.
MacResQ (www . macresq . com) offers screen replacement and service, as does DT&T
service (www.dttservice.com). Likewise, most authorized Apple dealers should
be able to replace a PowerBook screen or send it to Apple for service.
Table 20-4 shows you the PowerBook models that can be upgraded to a new screen,
according to Apple. (Most PowerBook screens can be directly replaced if necessary,
but only certain models can be upgraded to better screens.)
! Table 20-4
I Apple-Recommended PowerBook Screen Upgrades
PowerBook Model
Upgrade
Makes It a .. .
PowerBook 190/190cs
10.4" Active Matrix
PowerBook 5300c'
PowerBook Duo 230
Active Matrix; Color
Active Matrix
PowerBook Duo 250;
PowerBookDuo 270c
PowerBook 5300
10.4" Active Matrix
PowerBook 5300c
PowerBook 5300cs
10.4" Active Matrix
PowerBook 5300c
Docks, Bays, and Slots
The next type of upgrade focuses on stuff you plug your PowerBook into (or plug
into your PowerBook) to give it desktop-like capabilities. That includes CD-ROM
drives, hard drives. Zip drives, and other upgrades.
Docks are designed so that certain Mac models (mostly PowerBook Duos) can
make one quick port connection and immediately access an array of external
peripherals, such as additional hard drives, modems, full-size keyboards, mice,
and even an external monitor or two. The Apple Duo Docks, specifically designed
for this task, are a great example. Like a video cassette, the closed Duo slides right
into the Duo Dock, which otherwise resembles a full-sized Mac. Now the Duo is
ready to be connected to a slew of desktop peripherals, including internal drives,
SCSI devices, or external serial devices. Other docks made by third-party vendors
slide onto the back of various PowerBook models.
536 Part II 4- Performing the Upgrade
Bays are something relatively new, starting with the PowerBook 1400 series and
moving up through the line of newer PowerBooks. These expansion holes in the
PowerBook enable you to swap out different components — floppy drive, DVD-ROM
drive, Zip drive — to keep from being locked into using specific external
peripherals. Instead, you can plug in a CD-ROM drive and take it with you on the
plane for reference while you write a report, or swap to a Zip drive in the hotel
room if you’re planning to share data with colleagues at your next meeting.
PCMCIA (or PC Card) slots have been available on Macs since the Powerbook 190
and 5300 series, although it was possible to add PC Cards even before that; the
PowerBook 500 series was capable of adding PC Card support through an add-on
“cage” that fit in one of its expansion bays (which also double as battery bays).
These cards make it easy to add modems, Ethernet support, multimedia features,
and even miniature hard drives (although they often offer a lot of storage) to your
PowerBook.
Docks
The Duo Dock isn’t available new anymore, which almost makes sense. After all,
PowerBook Duos aren’t available new, either. The PowerBook 2400, the logical
successor to the PowerBook Duo line, is a little more self-sufficient than previous
Duos and can’t work with the Duo Dock. Although most PowerBooks (including the
2400) have ports on the back of the machine for a variety of connections,
PowerBook Duos were built with one special Dock connector and, in some cases, a
port for a telephone wire connector to enable use of the internal modem on the
road. To use removable media, connect to a network, or work with different input
devices, you had to connect through the Dock.
You can still find Duos and Duo Docks on the used market, making it possible to
upgrade the Duo Dock to take care of your external expansion needs. Duo Docks
include an RGB port for external monitors, a SCSI port for external drives, internal
space for SCSI hard drives, and ADB ports for external keyboards and mice. On top
of that. Duo Docks generally have one or two NuBus slots you can use for
expansion cards that are accessible from the Duo when it’s plugged into the Dock.
The Apple-branded Docks weren’t the only ones made for the Duo series; you’ll find
minidocks, usually adapters that plugged into the Duo to give it regular PowerBook-
style ports, available from a number of vendors.
These mini-docks are such a good idea that some of them have been created for
other PowerBook models, too. One of the popular models, Bookendz models from
Newer Technology (www. nev/ertech . com), is available for a number of newer
PowerBook models; you can slide the PowerBook into the dock, which then
automatically connects it to your external devices for use at your desk (see
Figure 20-12).
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 537
With most clocks, you put your PowerBook to sleep, and then insert it into the dock
and tap the full-size keyboard to wake it again. (You may also need to install special
software on the PowerBook to get certain things to work correctly.) With the all-
inclusive Duo Docks, you need to shut down the Mac before it can be docked. If you
try to insert it when the PowerBook is asleep, it will be ejected; if you insert it while
the PowerBook is on, the PowerBook will likely crash.
Figure 20-12: The Bookendz port replicator makes it possible
to dock many popular PowerBook models.
The AirDock, from Farallon (www . fa ra 1 1 on . com), is a slightly different animal.
Designed to work with PowerBooks that feature an IrDA port, the AirDock
integrates a PowerBook into your network by simply placing the PowerBook
close enough to the AirDock.
Apple also made a Duo Floppy Adapter, which allows Duos to connect directly to
an HDI-20 interface for a floppy drive, just like the drive designed to work with the
PowerBook 100.
Bays
The PowerBook 1400, 190/5300, 3400, G3 (3400 series) and G3 BTO series of
PowerBooks (so far) all feature expansion bays that enable you to swap between
different peripherals — mostly different types of storage devices. The majority of
these devices — floppy, CD-ROM and DVD drives — are made by Apple. A couple of
538 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
other options are made by VST Technologies (www. vsttech . com) including a Zip
drive and hard-drive solution for the bays of most modern PowerBooks.
One unique use of the bays in 3400, G3 (3500), and G3 BTO machines is an adapter
that allows the PowerBook to communicate with three PCI expansion cards. The
expansion chassis looks like a miniature external computer case, and it’s made by
Magma (www. magma .com).
In general, you simply use the device that is in the PowerBook’s bay (or bays) as
you would any other storage device. Its icon appears on the desktop (or appears
when you insert media) and allows you to open it as you would any drive.
What’s different Is that you can swap these expansion bay devices for other
devices. Although many of the PowerBook models do this differently, there is one
important rule. When you get ready to swap, make sure the drive isn’t in use, files
or applications on the drive aren’t open or being accessed, and any removable
media (floppy disk, CD-ROM, Zip disk) has been ejected before swapping. If you
don’t do this, the PowerBook will probably complain with an error message. Or, you
could cause a crash and a loss of data.
The expansion bays in the PowerBook 1400 are sleep-swappable, meaning you don’t
have to shut down the Mac to swap the expansion bays, but you do need to put the
PowerBook to sleep. You can do that using the Special *0 Sleep command. The 5300
and 190 models are also sleep-swappable in practice, although Apple officially
recommends that you shut these models down before swapping expansion bay
devices.
Newer PowerBooks feature hot-swappable expansion bays, meaning you don’t have
to shut the PowerBook or put it to sleep before parts get swapped (see Figure 20-
13). When you’re done swapping, you touch a key to wake the PowerBook back up.
Note
Don't swap expansion bay devices as the PowerBook is starting up or shutting down.
You should install them only when the PowerBook is in Sleep mode (for the
PowerBook 1400) or shut down completely (for the PowerBook 190/5300) or when
the PowerBook is on but there are no media in the drive and/or files being used on
it. Also, be aware that some third-party expansion modules may not be hot-swap-
pable or may require special treatment when being swapped.
Check your PowerBook’s documentation to learn exactly how to remove the
expansion bay device once the correct state of power and sleep has been achieved
Generally, it’s done by releasing a catch on the bottom of the drive, and then
smoothly sliding the device out of the bay. Adding a device is the opposite: Line it
up carefully, and then slide it In smoothly and easily until it clicks into place. Make
sure the device is secure in the bay; if it’s loose at all, it won’t work correctly.
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 539
Figure 20-13: Swapping drives in an expansion bay
PC Cards
If you’d like a quick and easy way to add capabilities to your PowerBook, you
should probably opt for a PC Card. They’re easily the most convenient method of
upgrading a PowerBook computer — at least, for models in the 190/5300, 1400, 2400,
3400/3500, and G3 series. Earlier models can’t accept PC Cards, with the exception
of the 500 series, which can accept the cards only if it has a special add-on cage
installed in one of its expansion bays.
You can’t buy the PowerBook 500 series PCMCIA card cage new these days, but if
you’re shopping for a used version, be warned that only the Revision C model will
work with a PowerBook 500 that’s been upgraded to PowerPC.
PC Cards are popular in the world of Intel-compatible notebook computers, too, so
you’ll find that a lot more of them are manufactured than are Power Book-only
solutions, such as expansion bay drives. And, in many cases, PC Cards designed for
Intel-compatible PCs can also be used with Macs, especially if the manufacturer
provides driver software to make the transition possible. (The G3 BTO series is the
first PowerBook to be compatible with the Cardbus interface, a higher-speed PC
Card interface that is popular on Intel-compatible notebooks.)
540 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
So just what are these cards? Also called PCMCIA cards (an acronym so unwieldy
that it’s recently been dropped), PC Cards are about the size of a credit card,
usually a bit thicker, with a 68-pin connector on one end. On the other end, you may
have a number of different connectors, although, in most cases, you connect some
sort of cable to the card (at least, if it’s designed to interface with something).
Figure 20-14 shows a PC Card modem.
Figure 20-14: A PC Card modem, complete with interface cable
c for connecting to the phone line
PC Cards can perform a number of different functions. They’re most popular for
add-on modems and Ethernet capabilities (especially for non-PowerBooks)
although a number of other applications exist. PC Cards can be video-out cards,
video-in cards (especially when designed for particular video cameras), sound
cards, static RAM storage cards (for storing a few megabytes or data in high-speed
but non-volatile RAM) and hard-drive cards. Table 20-5 shows some vendors of Mac
compatible PC Cards.
I®'® Apple warns that any PC Cards you attempt to use should be specifically Macintosh
^ compatible. Otherwise, you could damage the card, your PowerBook or data stored
on either.
Chapter 20 PowerBooks 541
Table 20-5
PC Card Vendors for Macintosh
Vendor
Type(s) of Card
Web Site
3Com
Modem, combo
www.3Com.com/
Dayna
Communications
Combo, modem,
Ethernet, ISDN
WWW. dayna .com/
Farallon
Ethernet, combo
www.faral lon.com/
Fujitsu
Storage
WWW. fpea . com/
Global Village
Modem, combo
www.global v1l 1 age.com/
Motorola
Modem
www.mot.com/
TDK
Modem
www.tdk.com/
Viking Components
Modem, storage
WWW. vi kingmem.com/
Zoom Telephonies
Modem, combo
WWW . zoomtel ephoni cs . com/
Using a PC Card is easy. With the Mac eitlier on or off (not in Sleep mode), plug a
compatible card into one of the PC Card slots. Make sure you’ve lined the card up
level with the slot; it’s easy to get a little out of alignment, and if you force the card,
you may damage something.
You should use a smooth motion (you’ll encounter a little resistance) until you hear
and/or feel the card click into place. After a few seconds (if the PowerBook is
turned on) you’ll see an icon pop representing the card on screen, as shown in
Figure 20-15.
If the card is designed for storage, then you can double-click it and begin to use it
as you would any other removable storage device. You may be asked by the
PowerBook to format the device before using it. If it’s an ATA/IDE (rotating hard
disk) device, you can format it using the Special O Erase Disk command. You can
choose to format it as a DOS or Macintosh volume.
Other PC Card storage devices often come preformatted for DOS/Windows
machines. Assuming the card doesn’t use some special compression scheme, you
should be able to use the DOS-formatted card on your Mac if PC Exchange is active.
If you want to reformat the device for Macintosh use, you’ll need to disable PC
Exchange and restart the Mac. Now, when you enter the card in the PC Card slot,
the Mac will ask you if you’d like to erase it and format it in Macintosh format.
Choose to do so.
542 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
Figure 20-15: An icon appears that represents the card.
You can't use your PowerBook to erase and reformat a Mac-formatted PC Card into a
PC-compatible format. You'll have to use an Intel-compatible PC with a PC Card inter-
face to format the card for use with PCs.
If the card is for some other function, you’ll likely need to install the configuration
software that came with the card before you can start using it.
If the card is a modem, you’ll need to configure your modem software to work with
it. In most cases, you’ll be able to choose the type of modem you’re using and how
the card is connected (choose the Upper PC Card slot or Lower PC Card slot entry,
as opposed to the modem or printer port). Figure 20-16 shows a modem being set
up in the Modem control panel to use Open Transport PPP for an Internet
connection.
chapter 20 4- PowerBooks 543
Figure 20-16: Setting up a PC Card modem
If you need to eject a PC Card device, make sure ifs not in use anymore, select the
card’s icon, and choose File O Put Away from the Finder menu, or drag the icon to
the Trash. The PC Card should pop right out. If the PowerBook is powered off, push
the button next to the card slot to release the card. Don’t remove cards while the
PowerBook is asleep — you’ll just confuse it.
External Ports and Peripherals
Aside from the Duo series, nearly all PowerBooks feature a full complement of ports
on the back for hooking up to external devices, as described in Table 20-6. All
PowerBooks through the PowerBook G3 BTO series (aside from Duos) support
external SCSI, for instance, as do nearly all Macs and Power Macs. Most
PowerBooks also feature serial connectors, ADB ports, sound-in and sound-out
ports, and some feature Ethernet connectors.
Mac Evangelista tip: When in Rome . . .
Mac Evangelista Doug Holmes tells me that his consulting work often takes him abroad.
While traveling, he needs to access his e-mail regularly. Unfortunately, every country
requires a different converter cable to connect your modem's RJ-11 connector to their
phone lines. But he's discovered a tip that might be useful for you, too:
"Most telephone-related office equipment (for example, fax machines and answering
machines) is made in the Far East, and most of it has a female RJ-1 1 receptacle on the back
or bottom. So, look around and see if you can find a device that has one of these ports on
it. Next, ask permission to hook up your PowerBook here.
"How to hook it up? All these machines have a localized cable' that has a male RJ-11 on
one end, to connect into the device, and a male local plug to mate with the local wall
socket, on the other end. Hence, my solution is to unplug the cable at the device, and insert
this male RJ-1 1 plug into the modem of my PowerBook. This has saved me several times, in
different countries, in both hotels and office buildings."
544 Part II -f Performing the Upgrade
Table 20-6
PowerBook external expansion ports
Model
Sound
Mic Port
In/Out
Ethernet
Video
Printer
Modem
ADB
100
No/
mono
No
No
No
Yes
No
Yes
140/
145B
Mono/
mono
Omni
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
150
No/
mono
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
160/165/
165c
Mono/
stereo
Omni
No
Mini- 15
Yes
Yes
Yes
170
Mono/
mono
Omni
No
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
180/
180c
Mono/
stereo
Omni
No
Mini-15
Yes
Yes
Yes
190/
190CS
Stereo/
stereo
No
No
Option
Yes
No
Yes
Duo series
Mono/
mono
No
No
No
Yes
No
No
500 series
Stereo/
stereo
Line in
AAUI
Mini-15
Yes
No
Yes
1400 series
Stereo/
stereo
Line in
No
Option
Yes
No
Yes
5300 series
Stereo/
stereo
Line in
No
Mini- 15
Yes
No
Yes
2400 series
Stereo/
stereo
Plaintalk
No
VGA
Yes
No
Yes
3400 series
Stereo/
stereo
Plaintaik
lOBaseT
VGA
(1,3)
Yes
No
Yes
G3 (3500)
Stereo/
stereo^
Plaintalk
lOBaser
VGA
Yes
No
Yes
G3 (BTO)
Stereo/
stereo
Plaintalk
lOBaseT
VGA"
Yes
No
Yes
1 lOBaseT is optional on the PowerBook 3400/180.
2 The G3 (3500) includes a special headphone jack.
3 Connector is shared for modem and lOBaseT connection; both can be used together if you install the included
adapter.
4 G3 BTO series includes an S-vIdeo out port (for connecting directly to TV devices) on configurations that include
the 13.3- and 14.1 -inch displays.
Chapter 20 4- PowerBooks 545
You’ll notice that some of the PowerBooks feature a mini-15 connector for video-
out; this requires a special adapter, included with the PowerBook, that converts it
for use with an Apple RGB monitor connector. VGA adapters can also be connected
to the RGB port on this mini-15 converter to make it work with projection systems.
The PlainTalk microphone is a special microphone designed to work with a
PowerPC-based Mac’s line-in audio input. Unlike most microphones, the PlainTalk
microphone enables you to record voice over a line-level input. Other microphones
require an amplifier to work correctly with the audio input ports on these Macs. A
connection from a receiver or mixing board, however, will work just fine.
The PowerBook 500 series requires an AAUI transceiver, but can be configured to
connect to either a 10Base2 or lOBaseT network. Other PowerBooks can connect
directly to lOBaseT cabling.
Note
Older PowerBooks have no Ethernet built-in and no way to add it— except through a
SCSI adapter. Because all PowerBooks (except Duos, which can accept an Ethernet
card through their Docks) have SCSI, you can use a SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter, such as
the one sold by Dayna Communications (v/ww . day na . com).
SCSI
Although it’s not mentioned in Table 20-5, all PowerBooks, except the Duo series,
feature an HDI-30 SCSI connector. To actually hook something up to this port
requires an adapter, either a SCSI Dock adapter that connects that adapter’s HDl-30
port to a 25pin SCSI adapter (that can then be used to accept a typical SCSI cable)
or a specially designed cable that allows you to connect the PowerBook directly to
a SCSI peripheral. Or, if you don’t use one of the standard cables, a SCSI Doc
adapter can be useful for PowerBook SCSI connections — both for SCSI disk mode
and for regular SCSI connections. You use a switch to change between the two, as
shown in Figure 20-17.
Apple actually makes a few very specific cables for hooking up PowerBooks and
SCSI devices:
4- HDI-30 SCSI System cable (Apple part no. M2538) is designed to begin a SCSI
chain by adapting the HDI-30 port to a Centronics SCSI interface. The cable is
light gray with 29 pins (a pin appears to be missing).
^ SCSI Peripheral cable (Apple part no. M0207) is for connecting two different
SCSI peripherals together, but can be used (with a special SCSI Dock adapter)
to connect to the PowerBook’s HDI-30 port.
4“ SCSI Disk Adapter cable (Apple part no. M3927) is for use with the
PowerBook when you want it to operate in SCSI disk mode. This cable is dark
gray and has a full 30 pins.
546 Part II 4 Performing the Upgrade
Figure 20-17: SCSI adapter and cable for PowerBook SCSI
connections
SCSI cables and docks are also made by Interex (www.interex.com/), APS
Technologies (www . aps tech . com/), and TechCessories (v/ww . techcessori es . com/).
If you don't have any cabling solution. I'd recommend a SCSI Dock, which usually
allows you to switch between regular SCSI operation and SCSI disk mode.
In PowerBooks that use an internal IDE bus for the hard drive and CD-ROM drive (if
one is present), all SCSI ID numbers (0 through 6) are available to external devices.
(As with desktop Macs, SCSI ID number 7 is reserved for the PowerBook itself.)
These IDE-based PowerBooks include the 150. 190, 5300, 1400, 2400, 3400, G3 3500,
and G3 BTO. In earlier Macs, the SCSI ID 0 is taken by the external SCSI hard drive.
Not all PowerBooks have included internal SCSI terminators in the past. Check your
PowerBook’s manual for information on whether or not you need a terminator at
the SCSI port itself before you connect to a SCSI chain of external devices. In many
cases, you'll need to add an external terminator before the first SCSI device,
especially if you’re only connecting one device in a Mac with a SCSI drive. If your
Mac has an IDE drive, you’ll likely need an initial terminator for the SCSI chain.
More recent PowerBooks don’t require the initial terminator, including the
PowerBook G3 3500 series. (Oddly, the very similar PowerBook 3400 series does
require an initial terminator.)
If your PowerBook crashes when you turn off the external SCSI device, this is a good
sign that you need termination between the device and the PowerBook. When termi-
nation is lost (after the SCSI device is powered down), the PowerBook's SCSI chain
loses integrity and crashes the PowerBook. An additional pass-through terminator —
or a SCSI Doc device from APS Technologies (www. apstech . com/)— will solve this
problem.
Chapter 20 > PowerBooks 54*7
Otherwise, dealing with SCSI devices works pretty much the same way as described
in Chapter 7. The only caveat is SCSI Disk Mode, which allows the PowerBook to act
as an additional external hard drive when connected to a desktop Mac. SCSI Disk
Mode is discussed later in this chapter.
Modem/Printer
Many PowerBook models only include one serial port — a modem/printer port —
that gives you access to an external serial device. The thinking seems to be that
these same Macs generally have some other expansion options, such as space for
an internal modem or a PC Card modem, so that you’re free to use the
modem/printer port just for printing.
The modem/printer port is also a LocalTalk port and, in the case of the PowerBook
3400 and G3 (3500), a GeoPort. Because it can do so many things, it’s sometimes
important to fool the port into being either a modem port or a printer port. Trouble
can arise when it believes it’s both or otherwise gets confused.
If you plan to install an external modem using the port, for instance, you should do
the following:
1. Power down the PowerBook and the modem. (You may be able to do this with
your PowerBook in Sleep mode — check the documentation.)
2. Connect the modem’s serial cable to the modem/printer port.
3. Turn on the modem and the PowerBook. in that order.
4. Once the PowerBook starts up, open the Chooser and turn off AppleTalk, if it’s
on. (If you’re using Ethernet for your network, you don’t have to turn off
AppleTalk.)
5. Choose a printer other than a serial printer — a LaserWriter, for instance —
that would likely be connected over a network.
6. In the Network or AppleTalk control panel, choose something other than
LocalTalk or Modem/Printer for the interface (this can slow down external
modems). Ethernet is fine, if you’re already using it for a network connection.
7. In the Modem control panel (if you’ll be using PPP) or in your modem
application, choose the Modem/Printer port for your connection. If that’s not
an option, choose Modem.
The modem should work. Try dialing out to test it. If you have trouble, check your
PowerBook’s manual for setup advice and consult Chapter 29. With some
PowerBook models, you may need to open the PowerBook Setup control panel and
choose Normal for the Modem’s compatibility mode. (This mode makes the modem
work better with certain Communications Toolbox programs.)
548 Part II ^ Performing the Upgrade
For a printer, the requirements are less stringent. Make sure you’re not using the
port as a LocalTalk port (if your printer is a direct-connect QuickDraw printer) in
the Network or AppleTalk control panel. Next, make sure you don’t have a modem
program or control panel that’s set to use the modem/printer port. Now connect
the printer as you would to any Mac, as discussed in Chapter 15.
You may occasionally come across a peripheral that specifically requires either the
printer or the modem port to work correctly. If it requires the modem port, set it up
as if it were a modem (turning off AppleTalk and c\ny LocalTalk connections in the
Chooser and Network/AppleTalk control panels). If it requires a printer port, you
may need to turn off AppleTalk.
If the serial device has its own control panel that polls the port for information,
make sure AppleTalk is turned off (or that a networking scheme other than
LocalTalk Is selected in the Network/AppleTalk control panels) and restart with the
device connected to the modem/printer port if you have trouble getting it to be
recognized. It may also be Important to set the internal modem to Normal in the
PowerBook Setup control panel.
Video
Although many PowerBooks have internal video or will allow internal video to be
added (see the section on internal slots earlier in this chapter), some PowerBook
models treat video differently from others. In earlier models with two video-out
ports, the connector is a mini-15 plug, which requires a special adapter (see
Figure 20-18).
Figure 20-18: To connect an external monitor to earlier
PowerBooks, you needed an adapter.
Chapter 20 4 - PowerBooks 549
The adapter connects directly to Apple-branded monitors with RGB connectors; for
other monitors, you’ll need a VGA adapter, as described in Chapter 12. Later
PowerBook models have incorporated a direct VGA-out adapter that connects to
most non-Apple video displays and projection systems. Additionally, the
PowerBook G3 BTO series includes an S-video-out port in some configurations that
allows you to show the PowerBook’s screen on a TV (or a TV-like device or
projection system).
There are two modes of video for working with an external monitor, and which you
use depends both on what your PowerBook supports and what settings you’ve
assigned it. Dual-monitor support means you can use the PowerBook’s screen and
an external monitor the same way you can use two video interfaces and monitors
on a Mac — side-by-side to increase the size of your desktop screen.
If your PowerBook supports this, it’ll most likely be the default mode when you
connect the monitor and awaken or start up the PowerBook. (You should put
PowerBooks to sleep before adding an external monitor.) If you’re using Mac OS 7.6
or above, you’ll use the Monitors & Sound control panel to set up the monitors. You
should have two control panels — one on the external monitor and one on the
PowerBook. The maiin Monitors & Sound control panel will feature new options,
including an Arranging button (see Figure 20-19).
Figure 20-19: The Monitors & Sound control panel on a PowerBook 1400 with a
video-out card and external monitor.
This allows you to set and arrange monitors just as you can with other Mac dual-
monitor systems, as described in Chapter 12.
The other video mode for a second monitor is called mirroring and it means simply
that the monitor and the PowerBook screen show the same thing. This is the only
mode that some PowerBooks (such as the 3400 and G3 3500 series) offer, whereas
it’s an option on other monitors.
550 Part II 4* Performing the Upgrade
If you’re using the Monitors & Sound control panel, you can choose to set up
mirroring by selecting a Simulscan resolution from the Monitor screen in the
control panel. (If you don’t see a Simulscan resolution, choose the Show pull-down
menu and select Simulscan.)
If you’re using a PowerBook that supports dual-monitor display, you’ll need to
change the mode to mirroring via the PowerBook Display control panel.
If you hook your PowerBook up to a monitor that is limited to a resolution lower than
the PowerBook's built-in resolution, you’ll notice that the PowerBook screen shrinks
a bit to accurately represent the shared resolution. An 800x600 PowerBook 1400
screen, for instance, will become smaller to represent the 640x480 screen required
to display a mirrored image on an Apple High-Resolution RGB Color Monitor.
SCSI Disk Mode
SCSI Disk Mode is a system that’s built into the Mac’s ROM modules, enabling you
to turn your PowerBook into a (rather expensive) external SCSI device for another
Mac. In essence it operates exactly like an external hard drive, appearing on the
desktop of the Mac to which it’s connected. You can then quickly transfer
documents and other files back and forth between the two computers.
You enter SCSI Disk Mode by starting the PowerBook with a SCSI Disk Mode cable
(or a SCSI docking adapter) plugged into the SCSI connector on one end and a
desktop Mac’s SCSI connector on the other. (Actually, you could use two
PowerBooks, in which case the host PowerBook should be using a SCSI System
cable.) Every time the PowerBook starts up, the ROM code routinely checks for
the presence of the SCSI Disk Mode adapter. If it doesn’t find the adapter, the
PowerBook’s SCSI ID number is set to 7, which is standard for the CPU in typical
SCSI chains.
If the SCSI Disk Mode cable is found, the ROM checks the battery’s remaining power
to see if the PowerBook has enough energy stored to enter SCSI Disk Mode. The
ROM then changes the hard disk’s address to the ID number that you’ve previously
chosen in the PowerBook Setup control panel (see Figure 20-20). This value has
been stored in PRAM. Instead of starting up the Mac as normal, the ROM just
performs a few basic housekeeping chores: It turns on minimal backlighting, spins
up the hard drive, and places the Disk Modem ID number on the screen, animating
it to prevent burn-in (or just to be entertaining, I guess).
Note
The PowerBook 140, 145, 145B, 150, and 170 models do not support SCSI Disk
Mode. PowerBook Duo models require a mini-SCSI dock or other Duo Dock to work
in SCSI Disk Mode, but otherwise they support It.
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 551
Figure 20-20: Setting the SCSI ID
the PowerBook will use when ifs
in SCSI Disk Mode
Although the only thing you really need to do is connect the appropriate Disk Mode
cable or adapter to make SCSI Disk Mode work, there are a few caveats to getting it
to work correctly for the first time:
> Make sure you set the SCSI ID for the PowerBook (in the PowerBook Setup
control panel) according to the SCSI chain in the host Macintosh, not the SCSI
chain for the PowerBook itself. That is, if you set the SCSI ID to 2, make sure
this is a valid ID number on the host Mac.
4* Only connect the SCSI Disk Mode adapter when the PowerBook has been
completely powered down (using the Special*^ Shut Down command). The
ROM-based commands necessary to enter SCSI Disk Mode are executed only
at startup. If you connect the Disk Mode adapter while the PowerBook is in
Sleep mode, the SCSI bus will potentially have two devices with SCSI ID 0,
which could cause data loss or corrupt files.
4 The host Mac and the PowerBook can’t have hard drives with the exact same
name. If they’re both called Macintosh HD, for instance, change one of them
before activating SCSI Disk Mode.
4 The host Mac needs to be powered down, too, and should remain that way
until SCSI Disk Mode is completely active on the PowerBook. Otherwise, it
may not recognize the drive.
4 The PowerBook needs to be properly terminated In the scheme of the host
Mac’s SCSI chain, just as does any SCSI device. In most cases, because the
PowerBook only has one SCSI connector, you’ll want it to be the last SCSI
device in the host Mac’s chain. A pass-through terminator should actually be
applied before the connection to the PowerBook, in this case.
With those precautions in place, you’re ready to start up SCSI Disk Mode and
access your PowerBook as if it were a regular external hard drive on the host Mac’s
SCSI chain. Here’s the basic procedure:
1. Assuming you’ve already set the SCSI ID for the PowerBook in the PowerBook
Setup (or PB Setup) control panel, shut down the PowerBook. With both Macs
powered down, connect the cables and appropriate terminators.
2. Touch the PowerBook’s power key to start it up. After a moment you’ll hear
the startup tone, the PowerBook’s hard drive begins to spin and the screen
flickers. Wait until you see the SCSI symbol and a SCSI ID number on the
screen. It’s now fully initialized in SCSI Disk Mode.
552 Part II > Performing the Upgrade
3. Power up the desktop system. Once the host Mac has completely started up,
you’ll see the PowerBook’s hard drive icon on the host Mac’s desktop. Work
with it as you would any hard drive icon.
4. To exit SCSI Disk Mode, power down the host Mac. Now, press the
PowerBooks power button to shut down the PowerBook. If you want to use
the PowerBook normally, just remove the SCSI Disk Mode adapter and start
up the PowerBook. The next time you turn on the PowerBook, it will start up
as usual.
PowerBooks 500 and 5300/190 series can have a particular problem when being
shut down after operating in SCSI Disk Mode that keeps the PowerBook from restart-
ing without a Power Manager restart (see Chapter 29). To work around the problem,
you should shut down the PowerBook by highlighting the PowerBook computer’s
hard drive in the Finder on the desktop of the host Mac, and then selecting FileC- Put
Away to unmount the drive. Now press and hold the Power key on the PowerBook
for three seconds, and then release it.
While in SCSI Disk Mode with a Macintosh llfx, remember to use the black terminator
between the Disk Mode adapter and the SCSI system cable. With other desktop
Macintosh models, use the standard gray terminator.
Summary
4 If you want to upgrade your PowerBook’s insides, you’ll need to know which
form factor your PowerBook fits into and how, exactly, to pop it open. There
are nine different form factors for PowerBooks (at the time of writing), and
they all offer slightly different ways to get inside the machine. Some are easier
than others.
♦ If you want to add internal cards or processor upgrades, you’ll need to know if
your particular PowerBook model can handle it. Nearly every PowerBook has
room for some sort of internal upgrade, whether it’s a processor upgrade, an
internal modem, or better video.
4 The other thing you’ll want to add is RAM. In almost all instances, you’ll need
to buy RAM that is specially designed for your particular PowerBook model
(see Table 20-1). The best advice I can give for the actual upgrade is to
download the Apple Memory Guide PDF document for diagrams and
instructions for installation.
Chapter 20 -f PowerBooks 553
-f Externally, your PowerBook likely has a full complement of ports although,
again, each PowerBook is slightly different. Once you figure out your
machine’s unique gifts, you can add SCSI devices, video-out capability (for
dual-monitor usage and monitor mirroring), modems, printers, and even
Ethernet networks.
4 Finally, you may find it compelling to hook up your PowerBook to a
desktop Macintosh in SCSI Disk Mode. This built-in feature enables the
PowerBook to act as an external SCSI device on the SCSI chain of the host
Mac. The PowerBook’s drive icon appears on the host Mac’s desktop where
files can be swapped, saved, and backed up just as though the PowerBook
were simply another drive.
Troubleshoot
and Repair
P
A
R
T
P art III begins with a discussion of troubleshooting in
general — specifically, deciding if the problem is likely in
your Mac’s hardware or in its software. If you have a software-
only problem, you’ll probably find the solution in Part IV. In
the remaining Part III chapters, hardware and software/hardware
integration issues are discussed — anything from hard drive
and scanner problems to downed networks and troubled
PowerBooks. This part also includes chapters on major
troubleshooting issues, such as what to do when the Sad
Mac icon appears, or when you have trouble with the logic
board, power supply, and system memory.
JJJ
>
In This Part
Chapter 21
Troubleshooting
Basics: What's
the Problem?
Chapter 22
Startup Problems,
Memory, and Ports
Chapter 23
Storage Devices,
SCSI, and File
Recovery
Chapter 24
Input Devices and
Scanners
Chapter 25
Monitors, Video,
and Sound
Chapter 26
Printers and Modems
Chapter 27
Networking Issues
Chapter 28
Gaming, Multimedia,
and DOS Issues
Chapter 29
PowerBook Problems
4 ^
4
Troubleshooting
Basics; What's
the Probiem?
A big part of being a computing consultant, technical
representative, or repair specialist isn’t necessarily
knowing, off the top of your head, what the correct order
number is for the plastic facing on an external SCSI drive
enclosure. In fact, you might not even need to know such a
thing exists, as long as you know where to find it in a catalog
or technical reference.
What’s more important is being able to reason out the basic
trouble that the computer is having — determining whether
it’s a software problem or a hardware one, what the most
likely culprit is, and how to fix it. Secondary to this is knowing
how to identify a problem and circumvent it in the short term
so that it can be fixed once the computer’s user is off their
deadline and, preferably, busy somewhere else. That’s when a
Mac troubleshooter is really going to get some work done.
If you’ve ever watched a TV doctor drama — or if you’re an
actual doctor — you know exactly what I’m getting at.
Whenever anything is broken, mechanical or biological,
there’s a pretty logical course of action you can apply toward
fixing it. Troubleshooting a Macintosh isn’t tough to do — it
isn’t brain surgery. It just uses the same diagnostic process
that leads up to brain surgery.
There are three parts to understanding troubleshooting: You
need to know what types of Mac problems are possible, you
need to know the typical indicators for various types of
problems, and you need to know how to isolate the problem
so that you can focus on it more closely. I like to wrap all of
this up under the heading, “The Troubleshooting Scientific
Method.” In fact, we can steal from the actual Scientific
Method to determine how to go about diagnosing Mac
problems.
^ ♦ 4 * ♦
In This Chapter
The Troubleshooting
Scientific Method
The types of Mac
problems
Isolating the problem
Determining a course
of action
> 4 - > 4 ^
558 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
From there you can decide if your Mac just requires a little digital therapy that you
Ccui perform in the ER or if you’re going to have to send your Mac up to surgery and
call in a professional.
The Troubleshooting Scientific Method
You may remember this one from grade school (if you’re like me), or you may
remember it from yesterday when you applied it to the solution of real-world
problems (if you’re a useful person, unlike me). The Scientific Method, for the most
part, is just as applicable to computing as it is anywhere else. It’s definitely a great
place to start troubleshooting a hardware or software problem.
So how does it apply to computing? Here’s a quick overview and how you can use
the Scientific Method for Mac troubleshooting:
4* Observe the problem. Probably the most important step in computer
troubleshooting is witnessing the actual problem. Part of this step is
determining whether the problem is reproducible. If you can figure out what
makes a problem happen over and over again, you’re on your way to a
solution.
-f Hypothesize a solution. This is the heart of troubleshooting — narrow things
down. Once you can reproduce a problem, you can start to decide what parts
of the computer may be affected and why. You can move from a larger system
— the Mac — to a smaller system — the video subsystem — and make a best
guess at what’s causing the problem.
♦ Experiment. With a possible solution at hand, test that solution to see if it’s
the right one. Specifically, you can test things by removing the problem from
your Mac (for instance, removing a possibly errant system extension or
removing a device from the SCSI chain), or you can test by replacing the
problem device (for instance, try printing to a different printer).
4* Form a conclusion. If your experiments prove fruitful, you can make a decision
about what the problem is and then do something about it. That could mean
digging through a manual for the correct setting in a control panel, removing
the peripheral completely in favor of a new one, or deciding that it’s time to
call an authorized service center.
The bottom line to applying the Scientific Method to Mac troubleshooting is this:
It’s really not that tough to find and fix the majority of nonfatal errors you’ll
encounter with your computers. It can take some time, but you don’t need to know
the inner workings of computer processors or how data flows around on your
Mac’s circuit board. If you’ve got a hardware problem that needs to be looked at by
a professional, at least you can get to the point where you’re making that
determination in a knowledgeable way.
Chapter 21 ^ Troubleshooting Basics: What's the Problem? 559
Anyone can do this sort of troubleshooting — just stop when you’re done getting
your hands dirty. You’ll be happier walking into a service center and saying, “I think
there’s something wrong with the on-board video or video connector,” than you
would be saying, “1 can’t see anything on screen!” You might even find that taking
your Mac in for major surgery is cheaper after you’ve done a bit of diagnosis on
your own, because the repair shop won’t waste billable hours trying to find a
problem you can point out directly.
I've been told by Mac repair professionals to warn you not to be too adamant that
your Mac's problem lies in a particular area, although it can be helpful if you tell them
very specific symptoms and alert them to reproducible problems. After the/ve put
your Mac through their diagnostic routine, they may find that the problem is more
complex or more simple than you'd envisioned.
Observation: Hardware versus software
The first step in troubleshooting is observing the problem and determining which
direction you should start out in — looking at either hardware or software. A couple
of obvious indicators can often suggest whether one or the other is at fault. The
trick is to step back from the problem for a moment and look at what the symptoms
of the problem are, and then determine whether they fall under the broad problem
categories of user, software, or hardware problems. Once you’ve figured out which
category most likely applies to your problem, you can begin to isolate the problem.
But you’ll have to observe the problem, first.
Is there a problem?
It’s not uncommon for a problem to just go away — maybe because it wasn’t a
problem in the first place. It’s even more likely that what you’re experiencing isn’t a
serious problem with hardware or software — the source of the problem may be a
cable you swore you plugged in (but didn’t), a bad setting on your monitor, or a
paper jam in your printer. These are the day-to-day occurrences that often make a
call to the help desk seem necessary, but actually fall under the heading, “User
error.”
Obviously people are smarter than computers, and computers aren’t always
designed right by the smart people that build them. But people are also much
more at the whim of their perceptions than are computers. Even Mac experts get
confused about things and have to stand back looking puzzled for a while. For
example, my main Mac features three or four devices dangling off a manual serial
switch box. If I want to print, I better not have the dial set to my page scanner. Still,
it happens to me almost daily. (That doesn’t surprise people who know me well.)
The first thing you need to ask yourself when observing the problem is whether or
not there really is a problem — that is, did something happen as a result of an error,
a bug, or a defect? Did anything break? Or is something just not set or configured
correctly?
560 Part III 'f Troubleshoot and Repair
The most important thing to remember about the observation problem is to sit
back and think clearly about what could be causing the problem. Leave the room if
necessary. Most of all, take a page from the Hippocratic Oath and do no harm.
Before diving into the System Folder to look for a more complicated answer or
deleting files you intend to restore from a backup, make sure youVe completely and
correctly diagnosed the problem.
Note
This might be a good time to remind you to think of the order of the Scientific
Method of troubleshooting. Don't just delete files, even if you're sure you have a
backup and you know you could easily restore them. You should begin to diagnose
the problem well before you start trying to fix it. Once you do get to the experimen-
tation stage, try things like moving files to a temporary folder (for instance, move sys-
tem extensions or the System file to the Extensions Disabled folder or the desktop
instead of throwing those files immediately in the Trash). And always test your back-
ups first to make sure you really have replacements for files you decide need to be
dumped.
Software problems
You’re much more likely to have software problems than hardware ones, and
they’re usually less expensive to fix. However, software problems are more often of
the variety that causes you to pull out your hair. The solution to software problems
can sometimes be buried behind the obvious — somewhere deep in the System
Folder, for instance — where you hadn’t planned to go. Software problems can also,
ultimately, be the fault of the company or programmers who created a particular
application. And even if you can’t really blame them (maybe they have a small firm
and can’t afford months of software testing to find possible conflicts with every
known Mac program), you may still need their help for a solution. Bug fixes
generally have to be offered by the programmers and publishers of the software
that needs them.
Software problems tend to result from one of three things:
'f Bugs. Bugs are problem areas in applications or the System software that
cause errors to occur; for example, bugs can be the source of a program’s
failing to release a communications port, writing data to the wrong parts of
memory, or simply not performing a function correctly.
> Conflicts. Conflicts may result from bugs, but don’t necessarily occur when
the program or code is executed by itself. Instead, conflicts occur between
specific programs and system software fragments. An example would be a
conflict between Netscape Navigator 4.05 and Open Transport 1.1 that results
in unexplained crashes not seen when Navigator runs with Open Transport
1.3 or higher. (This is an actual conflict, in fact, reported by Netscape in their
release notes.)
4 Corruption. Corruption occurs when an important system or setup file — for
example, the preferences file, the desktop database file, or something similar,
or a low-level hard drive management file — gets overwritten with either bad
or nonsensical information. This often happens as programs or the entire
Chapter 21 -f Troubleshooting Basics: What's the Problem? 561
Note
computer crashes with files open and being accessed — sometimes bits of
data are written to those files that weren’t supposed to be. In that case, the
next time the file is accessed it may give bad information to an application or
an OS, resulting in a crash.
You can actually make some interesting generalizations about these conflicts that
might offer clues as to what’s going wrong in a problematic Mac. Each of these can
occur under certain circumstances (although are by no means limited or likely said
circumstances).
Bugs, for instance, will usually crop up in earlier versions of software — including
major revisions of existing programs. This is a gross generalization, but you will
often find, for instance, that the 4.05 or 4.1 version of an application is more stable
than the 4.0 or 4.01 version. In general, this is the reason for such numbering
schemes; it indicates to you exactly what sort of revisions have been done to a
program. A major revision warrants a whole-number increase, whereas minor new
features will usually bump the number by a tenth (from 3.0 to 3.1, for instance) and
bug fixes are bumped by one hundredth (from 2.03 to 2.04, for example).
Of course, that’s not to say that a bug-fix release will be perfect. It’s completely
reasonable that a bug-fix release could actually contain new bugs. Still, if there’s an
apparent bug in one of your applications, head to the software publishers site and
find out if they’ve released a bug fix. A quick upgrade may solve your problems.
On a Macintosh, conflicts tend to occur on two different levels. The first is very
similar to the example cited earlier — Netscape having a “known issue” with Open
Transport. These known issues tend to be incompatibilities that either the
publisher fixes to work around a mistake Apple has made, or the publisher simply
recommends you don’t use a particular feature or extension when working with
their application. This isn’t limited to Apple’s system software either; applications
can often have conflicts with third-party system extensions designed to enhance
the Mac OS. (For instance, SpeedDoubler and RAMDoubler, from Connectix, are two
programs that often have to be upgraded to avoid conflicts with applications.)
For both conflicts and bugs, you'll find information usually on the installation CD or
disk, or in the folder for the program in question once it's been installed. Look for a
file named Read Me or Release Notes for information about bugs, conflicts, and fixes.
The other sort of conflict is an extension-to-extension conflict. Some extensions
simply don’t get along, causing crashes or bizarre behavior for the entire system —
not just a particular application. Some of these are known conflicts, some aren’t. In
any case, such a conflict can be tough to diagnose and even tougher to determine
the exact cause of: Symptoms of extension conflicts include a Mac that won’t start
up correctly or a Mac that has multiple crashes in many different programs. A great
clue is sudden catastrophic crashes that result right after you’ve installed a new
application or utility.
562 Part III 4* Troubleshoot and Repair
Don't forget that applications can add system extensions to your System Folder with-
out you even knowing it's happening. That's why extension-to-extension conflicts can
arise even after you've simply installed a new application program.
Extension conflicts are discussed at length in Chapter 32.
Corruption usually happens in one of three different places on your Mac’s hard
drive — preferences files stored in the Preferences folder in your Macintosh, the
System file in your System Folder, or the desktop database files that are hidden in
the root directory of your hard drive.
The first two can happen quite often, especially if you’re experiencing crashes
while some activity is taking place, whether it be something as innocuous as surfing
the Web in a Web browser program or something as critical as running a disk-fixing
utility on your hard drive. But no matter how important or unimportant that
activity may be, nearly any crash has the potential to bring down your system
through corruption of data.
When this happens the solution is generally to throw the corrupted file in the Trash
and start working again from a new copy. Usually this isn’t tough to do and it isn’t
catastrophic; you can easily restore preference files and the System file without too
much heartache. Rebuilding the desktop database isn’t much tougher. You can use
either a keystroke sequence (8§-Option) as your Mac starts up, or you can use a
software program to help you get the job done (see Figure 21-1).
Figure 21-1: TechTool from Micromat (www.micromat.com)
is great for deleting and rebuilding the desktop files -
even in its freeware version.
Chapter 21 ^ Troubleshooting Basics: Whafs the Problem? 563
Is it starting to sound as though your Mac has a System software problem? Mac OS
troubleshooting takes up the whole last section of the book, starting with Chapter 30.
If it's software that's specific to a particular hardware device, I'll be covering software
drivers for hardware over the next eight chapters.
A
Web ' \ Aside from my site for this book (www.mac upgrade.com/), if you're looking for
help for specific bugs and software glitches, let me recommend MacFixIt at
www.macfixit.com, where Ted Landau (author, humanitarian) offers news and
searchable tips about problem software.
Hardware problems
Thankfully, hardware problems are considerably more rare than software problems.
I say thankfully for two reasons: First, it’s tougher to fix a hardware problem on
your own; if you really have a bad printer or a bad monitor, you’re unlikely to have
the skills required for fixing them to manufacturer’s specifications. Second,
hardware problems that can be fixed by a specialist tend to be rather expensive.
The hardware problems you can fix will often be configuration issues. The main
indicator that you’ve got a hardware problem is simple: Something seems broken.
Not that it necessarily is broken, just that it seems broken. You’ve got all the right
software loaded, everything is plugged in and running okay, and you’ve triple-
checked the order in which you’ve connected things — and still, it doesn’t work.
That’s a clue that you’ve got a hardware problem.
But there are other clues that hardware is the issue. Start by taking a look at the
three basic types of hardware problems:
^ Miscon figured or wrongly installed. Something doesn’t seem to be turning on or
working correctly. This could be something as simple as an incorrectly
inserted power cable, a loosely installed expansion card, or an overloaded
ADB interface. Usually this points toward human error, but ignorance is
certainly a reasonable defense in many of these cases.
♦ Its cracked or broken. If you can’t get a floppy disk in the drive, if your printer
won’t move paper past the roller, or the hard drive makes horrific noise when
it’s powered up, that’s a good sign that something is broken. Things can break
as the result of electrical surges, being dropped, wearing out, or being
defective in the first place. If there’s no “sign of life” in a component, it’s either
not getting power from its power cable or power supply, it needs to be reset
— or it’s broken.
> Voodoo. In Mac circles it’s perfectly acceptable to talk about the voodoo
involved in certain hardware pursuits — specifically, you can talk about SCSI
voodoo, ADB voodoo, and networking voodoo. In these cases, sometimes
things work and sometimes they don’t. Most of these technologies are a boon
to upgraders, allowing for untold goodies to be added to your Mac without
repercussion. Unfortunately, things don’t always work out that way and
problems that arise surrounding these expansion technologies can sometimes
only be described as, well, weird.
564 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Obviously, some of these things are tough to fix for people who aren’t certified
technicians. If a piece of hardware is broken, it’s broken; some components, like a
computer’s power supply, aren’t even considered worth fixing by the manufacturer.
In other cases, you’ll need to take into consideration things such as whether the
warranty will be voided if you remove or explore something while looking for a
problem.
Note
In fact, a good general rule is this: the only case you'll need to take off is your Mac's
case. Once you've gotten inside the case, you're troubleshooting at the component
level, which is about as far as a noncertified technician should go. That means, in a
nutshell, don't take the case off anything else -a monitor, a hard drive, a CD-ROM
drive, or a power supply. Most "no user-serviceable parts" warnings really do mean it.
Obeying them has just as much to do with your safety, in many cases, as it has to do
with the complexity of the component or your warranty.
You can usually have good luck with fixing physical configuration, component-level
troubleshooting, and dealing with voodoo. If a SCSI chain needs a terminator, a CD-
ROM drive needs to be plugged into the IDE interface, or the PRAM battery has
gone dead on the logic board, these are all things you might want to try to fix. At
the very least you should try to diagnose them — you might give your service
dealer a head start on figuring out what’s wrong with your system.
I'll probably emphasize this a couple of times, but you should never trust a cable.
When you're troubleshooting to see if a problem is a physical one, always swap
cables around to see if one or more of them might be the problem. This is especially
true for both ADB connections and SCSI.
Hypothesize and experiment
Once you know whether you have a hardware or software problem on your hands,
you’re ready to move on to creating a hypothesis and experimenting to see if that
hypothesis plays out. Put even more simply, you need to isolate the problem.
Experimentation in computer troubleshooting usually comes down to a question of
isolation. Where is the problem, what’s causing it, and is it getting a reaction out of
anything in particular? That’s why it’s important to be able to duplicate a problem,
or to at least know that there’s a trend starting to form. Once you can begin to
isolate the problem, you’re that much closer to the solution.
It may be a tough one to pull off, but the best way to start isolating a problem is to
document the problem. For instance, just knowing that your Mac keeps crashing (or,
if you're a system administrator, hearing the same thing from one of your network's
users) doesn't help much in getting at the problem. Keep a notepad and pen next to
the computer. Next time it happens, jot down what you were doing. Experience the
problem a few more times, always taking notes, and you'll likely start to see a pattern.
Chapter 21 4 Troubleshooting Basics: Whaf s the Problem? 565
There are a couple of specific steps you can take to isolate the problem. Ultimately,
you want to determine what subsystem is affected and what might be the cause of
the problem, especially if you can narrow it down to a conflict. (Again, check
Chapter 30 for tips on isolating system software conflicts.)
Take a look at some common scenarios to see how you might narrow down the
problem.
This actually leads me to an important issue -manuals. You should organize them
and put them all somewhere on a little shelf space thafs dedicated to your Mac(s).
You may not be the type to read all those manuals, but one day you'll really appreci-
ate knowing exactly where they are.
Does my Mac have a startup problem?
If your Mac Is offering you an error message as it starts up, it’s trying to tell you
that something basic has failed in such a way that it can’t go on. Certain internal
tests take place before the Mac can move on to loading the full Mac OS. If any of
those fail, a tell-tale error message appears. Likewise, other typical problems can
happen at startup that might be indicators of fixable problems.
Here are some of those messages and indicators and a brief explanation:
4 * Nothing on screen, but my Mac makes odd sounds. These are sound codes that
tell you about different problems your Mac is experiencing in the startup
phase. See Chapter 22 for details.
4 A Sad Mac icon appears. Something is wrong with the Mac internally — either
the hard drive isn’t connected properly, there’s a RAM-related error, or
something is wrong on the logic board. Consult Chapter 22 for more on the
Sad Mac icon.
4 A blinking disk icon appears. The Mac passed all its internal tests, but it can’t
find the correct startup disk where the Mac OS System file is stored. See
Chapter 23 for troubleshooting advice.
4 - The Mac starts up, but the mouse pointer won Y move. You may have a keyboard
or ADB problem. See Chapter 24.
4 “ The monitor*s video isn*t working correctly — the picture is an odd shape, color,
or size. You may be having trouble with the monitor startup or with the logic
board battery. There could also be a monitor failure or a video circuitry
problem. See Chapter 25.
566 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Is it completely dead?
Whether it’s a monitor, port, modem, or internal hard drive, the first question you
should ask yourself about hardware is whether or not your Mac is completely dead
by way of some act of nature, the electric company, or blind luck.
^ Is the dead hardware an external drive or device? Make sure the power cable
or supply is plugged into a wall socket or power strip. If it’s plugged into a
power strip, make sure the power strip is turned on. If it’s a wall socket, make
sure the wall socket is working. Are other devices plugged into this outlet
working? Check the power cables and interface cables where they connect to
the peripheral. Unplug them and plug them back in to make sure they’re
seated correctly. If your peripheral has a power switch, make sure it’s turned
on correctly. If the peripheral doesn’t power on, try a different power cable. If
power is working but the device isn’t, the problem could be with the
device’s power supply.
-f If it’s an internal drive, make sure its ribbon cable and power connector are
both secure. Also make sure the power cable and ribbon cable are connected
to the power supply and logic board, respectively. Power the Mac on and
watch and listen to see if the internal drive starts up and makes any noise.
Power down the Mac, switch the power cable to a new, identical power cable,
and turn the Mac on again. Try other cabling configurations, and try to use
cables inside the machine that you know work with other devices. If the drive
doesn’t spin up with working power applied, either the ribbon cable is
defective or the drive Is.
4- Is the Mac not coming on? Make sure the Mac itself is plugged in, the Mac’s
power cable is plugged into the wall, and the Mac powers on correctly. If it
doesn’t turn on, try a different power cable, a different wall socket, or a
different socket in the power strip. (You might also try a completely different
power strip.) Pick up the Mac and carry it to another part of the room or
building. With nothing attached to it, plug it into the wall. Plug in a keyboard if
necessary and try to turn the Mac on. Hit the reset or programmer’s reset
button if your Mac has one. Listen to see if the fan is turning (in the back of
the machine) when power is applied. Take off the case and try pressing the
reset or front-mounted power switch (on some models) manually. Look for a
red button on the logic board and press it to reset. Apply power again, and
listen and watch for any activity. If nothing happens, the Mac’s power supply
might be bad. It may also be having logic board trouble.
*4 Is there nothing on the screen? Check the monitor’s power cable, connection
to the outlet, and connection to the Mac’s video out port. Switch power cables
with the Mac or a similar device to test the monitor. Unplug the monitor from
the Mac and try to power it on without having it connected to video circuitry.
Does the LED light up? If you move the brightness knob from one lock all the
way to the other lock, does it change the look of the screen? How about
contrast? Pick up your monitor, take it across the room or building, and try
the power there. Any better? If you get no reaction from the monitor, it may
need professional servicing.
Chapter 21 -f Troubleshooting Basics: Whaf s the Problem? 567
Is the I/O port/cable/controller bad?
If you can get the device to power up, but it doesn’t seem to be talking to your Mac,
you probably have some sort of input/output problem. These can be a bit tough to
pinpoint, as both software drivers (in the form of extensions and control panels)
and bad hardware can create these problems.
-f Does the external drive or device light up, make noise, get slightly warm, or
otherwise show signs of life, but still not seem to want to work with your Mac?
Make sure any interface cables between the peripheral and the Mac are
plugged into the correct ports securely. ADB and serial ports can look similar.
ADB and S-video connectors can fit into one another’s ports. LocalTalk and
serial cabling can look similar. Some serial cables, even if they seem identical
to others, don’t work correctly for different peripherals. If you can, try the
questionable interface cables on other devices and see if they work using
those cables. Remove the drive or device from your system, boot the Mac,
and see if you still have problems (or if any error messages appear relating to
the device). If there are no signs of communication, either the cable is bad,
the port is bad, or the software drivers are set incorrectly.
♦ Is it SCSI or ADB? If it’s SCSI, the cable might be too long, the SCSI chain might
not be correctly terminated, or the cable itself might be low-quality, cracked,
or bad. You may also have too many devices (on an ADB port), or the devices
may be assigned to the wrong SCSI ID addresses. Try plugging the device in
(ADB or SCSI) by itself and see if things improve. If they don’t, try different
cables while the device is plugged in by itself. Try different SCSI IDs and
different termination settings. Use the Apple System Profiler or SCSlProbe to
see if the device can be recognized. Also try plugging in all the other devices
without the problem device and see if things improve or if there are still
problems. If a device doesn’t work by itself and all other devices work fine
without it, the problem might lie in that particular device or the software
setup.
4* Is it the port? Try another device on that port to see if it works. (For instance,
try another modem on the same port as a defective modem or try connecting
your printer to that port and printing.) Check the settings and control panels
governing that port. Use a port utility (like the shareware program Reset
Serial Port available from www. mac down 1 oad . com) or the device’s control
panel software to reset the port, and try the defective device and other
devices again. If the other devices work, try a different cable with the
defective device. If it still doesn’t work with a new cable or two, but other
devices work on the port, the device may be defective. Or, it could be a
software setup problem.
Of course, nearly every device is different — that’s why there are still eight more
chapters in this section of the book. Generally speaking, you should be able to
troubleshoot most devices at this level, but some Mac peripherals and drives will
simply have a few extra trouble spots that will (hopefully) be covered in the coming
chapters.
568 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Is it a software driver?
One of the places where devices can vary widely is in the driver software that they
use. You may need to read the device’s manual to truly gain an understanding of
how the device’s control panels and extensions work. They can certainly be a
source of trouble.
4- Are the software drivers set correctly? Start up your Mac and bring up the
Extension Manager (hold down the spacebar as the Mac begins its startup
cycle). When the Extensions Manager appears, choose to start with
extensions off or only with the Mac OS base extensions. Next, manually
activate the extension(s) or control panel(s) necessary for the device. When
the Mac has completely started up, go to the control panel for your device
and set it correctly, according to its manual. If the device works, the problem
may be a conflict with other device drivers. If it doesn’t work, you may be
missing software components.
4 Reinstall the software drivers from the original diskettes or CD-ROM. Start up
the Mac again with all extensions active and try the device. If it doesn’t work,
drop back to the previous bullet point’s advice. If that works, you may still
have a device driver conflict. Check the device manufacturer’s Web site for
updated driver software. If the device still doesn’t work, it may be defective.
Conclusion: What to do next
If you’ve gotten through all these different questions and they haven’t hit on the
likely source of the problem, it looks like the problem Is isolated to the device or
component that seems to be failing. For instance, if the modem isn’t working but
you’ve checked the power, port, cable, and software, there’s a good chance the
problem lies with the modem. Same for a printer, networking device, scanner, CD-
ROM drive, or other component. In your scientific opinion, that may be the most
obvious conclusion.
X
Of course, it may not yet be time to throw the component out yet. If it’s dead and
nothing seems to revive it, take the component to a repair shop to find out the
prognosis. If you’re lucky, computer surgery may help. If the component is simply
giving you fits, and you can confidently say that it’s the component’s fault and not a
software glitch or an I/O problem, you’re ready to move on to the chapter that
covers that specific component and troubleshoot from there.
The rest of the chapters in this section of the book features a wide variety of
ways to troubleshoot particular components, including the software drivers
and conflicts that can arise with some hardware. Also check the Apple
Tech Info Library (www.info.apple.com/til) and the Mac-Upgrade.Com site
(WWW. mac -upgrade . com) for updates.
Chapter 21 > Troubleshooting Basics: What's the Problem? 5 69
Evangelista tip: The Coke fix
I have two favorite troubleshooting tips that, I'll admit, I don't always follow myself. But
they're really clever little bits, the sort of thing that can make you tons of money on the lec-
ture circuit. So, I'll offer them here for your perusal.
Based on the popular advice for getting dressed in party regala — "Back up and take off one
accessory" — my advice is this: If you're having trouble figuring out what's causing a prob-
lem, back up and take a good look at the problem. Think about it as a series of logical steps,
and see which one you may have missed. Many, many problems grow from a user error or
oversight of the real problem because somebody plunged in, got frustrated, and took things
to greater depths more quickly.
My other advice is to take a break or a walk, if necessary. Get away, clear your head, and
come back to the problem. If you're like Evangelista Doug Dickeson, (self-described "Mac
geek and guitar freak" from Lincoln, NE) you may find the problem solves itself:
"I started repairing and configuring Apple equipment in 1980, predating the Macintosh by
some four years. Another technician and I discovered 'zapping PRAM' by accident, way
before it was common practice.
"We'd both been working on a nonfunctioning Mac Plus, and had tried everything we could
think of: different system, different drives, reseating RAM, praying, and so on.
"We pulled out the battery to make sure it was functioning and it tested OK. We threw up
our hands in disgust and said, 'Let's go get a Coke.'
"After about five minutes we came back, plugged the battery back in, and tried to startup
once more. We were stunned when it came up and smiled at us! We then decided that the
proper way to fix a Mac with these symptoms was to pull out the battery and go get a Coke.
We named it the 'Coke fix' — later learning other less pernicious methods of clearing param-
eter RAM, or PRAM."
Summary
> The key to successful troubleshooting is following the old Scientific Method:
observe, hypothesize, test, and conclude. The ultimate goal in any Mac
troubleshooting is to eliminate the parts of the system that are working
correctly so you can get to the root of problems affecting your system. This
way, even if you take the machine to a service center, you’ll have a much
better idea of what the problem is, potentially saving money and time.
570 Part 1114^ Troubleshoot and Repair
4 Mac problems are more often software-related than hardware-related, and
that’s good, because hardware problems tend to cost more money.
Unfortunately, software problems tend to be more obscure. You’ll want to do
what you can to eliminate software as a possible problem area first, and then
move on to hardware troubleshooting. You should also make sure there is no
human-error element to the problem.
4 Once you know you have a problem, you need to begin asking questions
about it to see if you can narrow it down to subsystems within your Mac. This
is the hypothesize-and-test portion of the Scientific Method — take an
educated guess at what might be wrong, and then test to see if that’s really
the problem. You usually do that by isolating part of the system and testing it
on its own.
4 Once you think you’ve found the problem, you’ll need to come to some
conclusion as to what to do. If the repair or replacement is within your skills —
and/or if you find an answer in this book or through a company’s tech support
machine — you can conclude that fixing the problem component will solve the
problem. You may also, in some instances, need to conclude that it’s time to
take the Mac into an authorized service center for repairs.
startup
Problems,
Memory, and
Ports
S ometimes the things that make Macs go — or go faster —
can bring them to a screeching halt. This is certainly no
more evident than when a component of the processing
subsystem — RAM, the processor, the logic board, or the
power supply — starts to fail or give you fits. These aren’t
always the most obvious problems to troubleshoot, either,
because they’re not always tied to an immediate failure.
Instead, many RAM or processing problems will show
themselves only in roundabout ways, such as frequent, odd
crashing, sudden slowdowns, and unexplainable freezes. It is
possible to narrow a problem down to the logic board and/or
RAM, however.
The most immediate problem you can have with a Mac,
though, is when it simply won’t power on. In those cases, you
can do a certain number of things to test the system and see
what, exactly, the problem is. From there, you can decide if
you need to take the machine in for repairs.
^ ^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
When your Mac has
startup trouble
Parameter RAM
Memory errors and
issues
Port problems
♦ ^ 4 -
when the Mac Won't Start Up
There are probably few problems more annoying or disturbing
(especially if you paid for your Mac yourselO than a startup
problem. These problems, as outlined in Chapter 21, are those
that stop you in your tracks before you’re able to get started
with the Mac. The machine has detected a problem very early
in the boot sequence, probably as a result of special
diagnostic tests that go on right when your Mac gets power.
These tests, administered by the Startup Manager
572 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
(programming code stored in the Mac’s ROM chips), determine whether the system
is healthy enough to begin loading the Mac OS from the hard drive, ultimately
resulting in the loading and relinquishing of the Finder to the user. If the Mac
doesn’t get far enough into this process, the user can have almost no control,
making it difficult to troubleshoot problems.
The first indicator of the type of startup problem you’re having is how far you get in
the startup sequence. The sequence is pretty straightforward, offering a few
hurdles that the Mac has to overcome before it can start loading the Mac OS and
enable the user to control the computer. These fail-safes keep you from doing more
damage to a fragile system, but the fail-safes themselves are a bit obscure. You’ll
need to watch closely if you’re having trouble.
Power-on
Obviously, the first thing a Mac needs to do is to power on correctly. When you hit
the power key on a Mac’s keyboard (or the Power button on some pizza-box-style
Macs or the power switch on the back of many all-in-one Mac models), power is
sent to the logic board, which begins the standard power-on process. At this point,
you should hear the fan start up and the power supply come on (usually this brings
with it a quiet humming sound that gradually gets higher in pitch, like a jet engine
starting or the Frankenstein monster first coming to life). If the fan isn’t spinning,
shut the Mac down immediately.
Next, power flows to the Mac’s ROM chips, which begins the power-on diagnostic.
The Start Manager is invoked, testing the components on the logic board. It
continues the testing by sending out simple electronic commands to most of the
machine — CPU, drives, ports, and NuBus and/or PCI slots — to see that everything
is working properly. Next, it tests RAM.
If there’s a problem with IU\M — or any of these early steps — that’s when you’ll
likely see a Sad Mac icon or you’ll hear the death chimes (sounds that aren’t like
the typical Mac startup sound). Your Mac won’t go any further than this until you
do something about the problem that caused the Sad Mac to surface.
© Much of the troubleshooting discussed about powering on a Mac covers what to do
if nothing happens and the power supply fan doesn't start turning. However, what if
the power supply fan doesn't turn, but other things (such as the Mac starting up or
the monitor coming to life) do happen? Turn the Mac off immediately and have it ser-
viced. The lack of air circulation inside a Mac could cause a heat-related failure that
could affect very valuable internals.
Troubleshooting power
Symptom: You turn the Mac on and nothing happens, including no sounds being
made and the fan in the back not turning.
chapter 22 > Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 573
Let’s start at the beginning: What do you do if the Mac doesn’t seem to power on? If
you hit the power key and absolutely nothing happens, it’s time to dig a little
deeper. Here are some steps to try:
> Check the power cable for the Mac. Make sure the power cable is the same
cable that came with the Mac 2 tnd that it’s attached correctly. Test the
connections, and then try powering on again. If that doesn’t work, try
plugging the power cable into another device that you know does work.
Usually Mac monitors and Macs share the same sort of power cable; plug
the cable into the monitor and see if it turns on (it probably won’t light up,
because it’s not attached to a Mac, but if it has power LED [a small light on
the front], this can give an indication as to whether the monitor is getting
power). If the power cable works, the problem is somewhere in the Mac’s
case.
4 - Hit all the reset buttons you con find Check the manual for the reset buttons on
your Mac — some models have more than one reset button, power rocker
switch, or power button. In fact, your Mac may need to have a button pressed
or a power switch on before it’ll start from the keyboard. (Certain Macs, such
as the Power Macintosh 6100, don’t start from the keyboard at all.) Some
Macs even have a small, red reset button on the logic board that needs to be
pressed sometimes after you’ve swapped components. If the reset buttons
still don’t work, the problem may be with the power supply — or it could be
the keyboard or ADB port.
4 Test the keyboard. If you can, plug in a different keyboard, or try to start up
with the ADB cable plugged into a different ADB port on the keyboard (some
keyboards give you no option). Also try starting with fewer ADB components
and/or plug your keyboard into the second ADB port, if your Mac offers one. If
you still can’t get the Mac to start, the problem may lie with a battery or the
power supply.
*4 Change the PRAM battery. These batteries (discussed a bit later in more detail)
are located on the Mac logic board and designed to keep a tiny trickle of
power headed to a small portion of RAM called Parameter RAM. This RAM
holds such settings as the time, date, colors, and state of AppleTalk from
session-to-session. If the battery dies, your Mac’s ability to power up may be
affected. This is more likely to happen on systems three years old or older,
but the battery could be defective in most any Mac. Replace the battery (any
Mac store and most computer stores should be able to get you the correct
PRAM battery). I’ll discuss how to replace it later in this chapter in the
section “Troubleshooting PRAM.” If replacing the battery doesn’t fix things,
you likely have a power supply problem.
In most cases, the power supply should fire up and spin the fan, even if you’re
having trouble with the Mac’s logic board. Assuming you believe the keyboard, ADB
cabling, and ADB ports to be operational, it’s likely your power supply has died. If
that’s the case, you can consider replacing it and testing again.
574 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
Replacing the power supply
1 need to make a couple of points up front. The power supply is not user-
serviceable, so don’t open it or unscrew it. In fact, most Mac repair shops toss out
power supplies (or ship them back to the manufacturer) instead of opening them.
They’re more toss-and-replace components than they are serviceable.
Also, Apple doesn’t recommend users replace power supplies on their own, and
doesn’t condone the practice. In many cases, it may void your warranty if your
machine is new. In fact, if your Mac is still under warranty, I recommend vigorously
that you take the machine into an authorized service center and have them look at
the power supply and other components; for one thing, it’ll probably be cheaper, as
Apple will often replace defective parts such as power supplies for free (see your
Mac’s own warranty for specific details).
However, if you have an aging Mac that seems to have suffered from a power spike,
or you believe its power supply or power supply fan has gone through old age, one
option is to replace the power supply. It isn’t impossible, but it’ll take some keen
observation and a little time.
You’ll also need to get your hands on the correct power supply. Not only will the
power supply need to be rated the same as your current Mac’s power supply, but
you’ll need to get one that fits your particular Mac’s case. The best plan is to find a
Mac component supplier that offers power supplies designed specifically for your
brand and model of Macintosh. Such vendors are listed in the back of Mac
magazines and on the Web.
You’ll find that power supplies are only available for modular Macs and Macs built
around industry standard form factors like most Power Macs and Mac clones.
Generally, that excludes all-in-one Macs and many Performas that feature pull-out
logic boards for upgrading. These Macs should always be professionally serviced.
Once you’ve got a replacement power supply, you’re ready to switch it for the old
one. To start, follow these steps:
1. Shut down your Mac, ground yourself, and unplug the power supply from the
wall socket or surge protector. Make doubly sure it's unplugged!
2. Examine the power supply carefully. It’s the metallic box with all the warnings
plastered on it (see Figure 22-1). What you’re looking for are the mounting
screws that hold the power supply into the Mac’s chassis. These are different
from the screws that hold the power supply together — avoid confusing
the two.
chapter 22 -f Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 575
Figure 22-1: The power supply usually sits in a corner of the
machine, parceling its power connectors to internal devices. It's
important to note which screws attach it to the Mac's chassis and
which are part of the power supply itself.
3. Unplug the power supply’s power connectors from the internal drives in the
Mac. You’ll also want to unplug the power supply’s power connectors from the
Mac’s logic board. When doing this, make careful note of their orientation —
specifically, which goes on which side and in what direction. You’ll need to
plug the new supply’s connectors in the same, exact way. Compare the old
connectors to the new connectors and label the new ones (using masking
tape), if possible.
Some Macs use a specially designed connector to plug the power supply directly into
the logic board instead of using power cables. If your power supply doesn't have
cabling connecting it to the logic board, you might find that the power supply plug is
under the power supply, attached to the logic board (see Figure 22-2).
4. Unscrew the retaining screws that mount the power supply to the Mac’s
chassis. Hang onto the screws.
5. Pull the power supply from the chassis. If you have trouble removing it, make
sure you didn’t miss one or more of the retaining screws. You may also find
that some Mac models have plastic tabs that retain the power supply. Look
for a tab (sometimes part of the internal drive assembly) that releases the
power supply.
6. Position the new power supply so that the retaining screws can be used to
mount the supply to the Mac’s chassis. Screw in the retaining screws.
576 Part III 4^ Ttoubleshoot and Repair
Figure 22-2: Some older Mac power supplies plug directly into a
special socket on the logic board.
7. Reconnect the power supply’s power connectors to the Mac’s logic board.
Take care that they’re installed correctly (see Figure 22-3).
Figure 22-3: When installing a new power supply make sure the
power connectors for the logic board are properly aligned.
Chapter 22 > Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 577
8. Reconnect the power connectors to the Mac’s internal drives.
8. Reconnect the power connectors to the Mac’s internal drives.
With all this accomplished, you can seal your Mac back up (or partially so),
reconnect a keyboard and monitor, and then plug the Mac’s power cord from
a wall socket or surge protector into the Mac’s power supply. (You may need
to use a reset or power switch before the keyboard power key is operational.)
If the power supply spins up and the fan begins working, you may have solved
your problems.
Troubleshooting Death Chimes
Symptom: The Mac starts up and power seems to be fine, but it chimes four
times, eight times, or makes a sound like the Twilight Zone theme, a car crash, or
breaking glass instead of (or just after) the typical Mac startup sound.
For the most part, the only clear generalization you can make about hearing strange
sounds from your Mac at startup is that it’s not happy about something. Even
Apple’s Tech Info Library is less than helpful on some of these matters, suggesting
the same thing I just said — if you hear the tones, there’s a problem. Mac models
tend to vary in what these sounds are, how they vary, and what they indicate.
Although the sounds are sometimes suggestive of a hardware problem, they also
sometimes mean a software problem, depending on the Macintosh or Power
Macintosh model you have.
Evangelista tip: Jump-start your IVIac
Standard warning— this tip may be something that no one should try. I haven't even tested
it myself, so I can't vouch for its usefulness or veracity. But it does sound like a good idea if
you've decide that a $150 Mac II is worth the risks involved. Don't try this at home -I won't
be responsible for the consequences.
That said, Etienne Michaud from Montreal, Quebec had this to say about jump-starting a Mac:
"Those old Mac Ms might be starting to be a bit tired after so many (computer) years of duty.
When you run into a unit that won't start up anymore, you might want to try jump-starting
it, just like a car on a cold day. Typically, the Mac will gradually refuse to cold boot before
going completely deaf to the power key over a period of time.
"Take a battery pack with 3 AA batteries and connect one wire to the power supply casing
and the other one to the closest pin (when you are standing in front of the Mac) that goes
from the power supply to the motherboard.
'You should hear the startup chime. If not, you've most likely just toasted your Mac. . .or it
had a problem that had nothing to do with the power supply.
"Now, don't shut down that Mac anymore. Leave it on as a mail server, DNS, router, or
something like that. Macs never die."
578 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
The only real advice I can give you is this: If the sound is something weird, it
probably suggests that something went wrong with the startup process. If you
recently made a change to your Mac — for example, adding RAM, adding a hard
drive, or adding an expansion card — you might not have installed the component
in question correctly or it may be defective. There could be a software problem, but
software problems are generally supposed to give other indications.
If the sounds are a series of tones, that’s a little more helpful. Four tones, according
to Apple, is cause for concern over the hard drive. Try booting with a Disk Tools
disk, a Zip disk (or other removable disk), an external hard drive, or from a CD-ROM
that includes a valid System Folder (see the section “Startup key commands” and
Chapter 23 for more on booting from other drives in your system). If you’re hearing
eight tones, that’s often a memory problem. Check to make sure your memory is
properly installed. If it is and the tones persist, try troubleshooting memory.
Troubleshooting Sad Macs
Symptom: The Mac powers up and gives the standard startup sound, but a sad
Mac face appears on the screen instead of a happy one.
The Sad Mac can be interpreted as meaning the Mac isn’t “happy.” It certainly
doesn’t look happy. Actually the Sad Mac icon tends to give you a better indication
of what may be the problem in your system. The first thing to concern yourself with
is exactly when the Sad Mac icon appears.
If the Sad Mac appears after the Happy Mac or Welcome to Macintosh screens, the
problem is almost certainly with your software. In this case, you should
troubleshoot the startup drive and Mac OS system software — consult Chapters 23
and 30 for starters.
As mentioned earlier, the Mac tests the logic board components, ROM, ports, and
system RAM rather early in the process. The Sad Mac can appear in response to
these tests, but if it does, it’ll appear quickly — within seconds of turning the Mac
on. In this case, you almost certainly have a hardware problem of some sort.
On Macs newer than the Mac Plus and other classic Macs, the Sad Mac icon is
generally accompanied by an error code; the codes, in hexdecimal, give an error
number that can sometimes be used to track down the problem. These codes are
usually two 8-bit hex numbers in two rows under the Sad Mac icon, as in the
following:
xxxxyyyy
zzzzzzzz
chapter 22 4- Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 579
In general, experience and Mac experts agree that the first line of codes is where
the action is — that’s what you want to focus on for troubleshooting help. In fact,
you can focus in even more: The first four numbers of the first line (xx'AfA*) can be
ignored, says Apple. What you should focus on are the second four numbers,
represented byyyyy.
What do they mean? Consult Table 22-1 for a quick rundown.
Table 22-1
Common Sad Mac Codes
Code Number yyyy
Troubie Spot
0001
Macintosh ROM
0002, 0003, 0004, 0005
Bad or incorrectly installed RAM module
0008
ADB problem (Check your ADB ports, devices, or have
ADB serviced.)
OOOA
Defective NuBus card or slot (Remove it or have the
Mac sen/iced.)
OOOB
Defective SCSI controller
OOOE
Bad memory module or system bus problem
OOOF
Software problem
The errors to hope for, obviously, are poorly seated RAM modules or a single
defective NuBus card — these are problems that you should be able to troubleshoot
on your own. Otherwise, software problems generally mean there’s something
wrong with the organization of files on the hard drive. The Start Manager can’t find
a drive to start from or a System Folder to hand things off to. (See “Trouble with
RAM” later in this chapter.)
System Startup
Once the Start Manager has successfully completed the startup task, memory is
allocated for the Mac OS, portions of which are already available from the ROM
chips. The Mac OS is transferred from the ROM chips into this part of I^M, and
then the Start Manager goes on its quest for a startup disk to finish the task of
loading the Mac OS into memory. A startup disk is a hard disk, removable media
disk, or a CD-ROM that includes a valid System Folder. You can choose the specific
startup disk you’d like to use through the Startup Disk control panel or by holding
down certain keys as the Mac starts up, usually just after the Mac startup chime.
(These keys are discussed in the next section.)
580 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
The Start Manager begins by polling the floppy drive to see if a floppy disk
containing a System Folder has been inserted. Next, the Start Manager checks
PRAM for a setting put in place by the Startup control panel (see Figure 22-4). If
you’ve specified a particular hard drive (or other volume) for startup, the Start
Manager will find that information stored in the PI^M.
S*Wcl I SItrtup tmk
Figure 22-4: The Startup control panel is used
to tell the Mac what disk to employ as a startup
disk at the next restart. This information is stored
in PRAM after the Mac is shut down.
If the Start Manager can’t find a valid System Folder on that particular drive, it’ll
start searching the SCSI chain in descending order — the device as SCSI ID number
6 gets checked, and then the one at number 5, and so on. The Happy Mac icon
appears when the Start Manager finds a System Folder.
If the Start Manager doesn’t find a valid System Folder, you’ll likely get one of two
errors: a blinking X icon or a blinking ? icon. Both mean that the Mac couldn’t find a
valid System Folder, but under different circumstances. (See Chapter 23 for advice
on troubleshooting a startup disk problem.)
As this is happening, it’s actually possible for you to use the keyboard to send
commands that will interrupt this process, and then begin it again with new
instructions. Using a keyboard command — a sequence of keys on the keyboard that
are held down at the same time — you can guide the Mac along so that it does what
you want it to do during the startup phase.
startup key commands
Most of these key commands are used to alter the Mac’s startup behavior,
especially when you’re having trouble or operating under special circumstances. If
you find you’re using keyboard commands with every startup, you may need to
look more closely into your configuration. All keys should be pressed at the same
time, usually before you hear the Mac’s startup sound. Each should also be held for
a certain duration, as noted.
Table 22-2 shows you some common keyboard commands to use as your Mac
starts up.
Chapter 22 > Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 581
Table 22-2
Startup Keyboard Commands
Command
Key Sequence
Until
Bypass internal drive
§i-Option-Shift-Delete
Happy Mac appears
Boot from a CD-ROM
"C" key
Happy Mac appears
Rebuild the desktop
§6-Option
Rebuild Desktop dialog appears
Zap PRAM
§§-Option-P-R
Two or more startup tones have played
Start with extensions off
Shift
Welcome to Macintosh screen appears
Bypass Startup Items
Shift
(After Welcome screen) Finder appears
Open Extension Manager Space
Extension Manager opens
Each of these startup command sequences is useful for different things, some of
them being fairly straightforward, whereas others take a bit of explaining. For
instance, the commands for bypassing the internal drive or booting from a CD-ROM
enable you to choose a different drive to start up the Mac OS from, even if you
didn’t specify a new startup disk in the Startup control panel before restarting.
Rebuilding the desktop is a process that can solve a number of system software
problems. It’s discussed in detail in Chapter 31.
Starting with the extensions off lets you start up with a clean, basic Mac OS without
any additional extensions, control panels, or startup items loaded. Starting up the
Extension Manager gives you an opportunity to change the system extensions,
control panels, and startup items folder. Bypassing Startup Items enables you to
load a full complement of extensions and control panels while keeping any
applications in the Startup Items folder from executing.
Zapping Parameter RAM, though, stands alone as a somewhat unique solution to
many different Mac startup issues.
Parameter RAM
As mentioned. Parameter RAM is a portion of RAM that’s kept active by a small
battery that’s mounted on the logic board. This RAM holds key information about
your Mac that’s required for starting it up and remembering certain settings after
the Mac is powered down.
582 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
This is, in fact, its main purpose for being. As you’ve seen, the Mac goes through
quite a few machinations before it begins to look for a startup drive. Because it
can’t access information stored on a hard drive until it knows where to find one,
and regular RAM gets wiped out whenever the Mac loses power, shuts down, or
restarts, the Mac needs somewhere else to store small, vital tidbits of information.
That place is PRAM.
The tidbits stored in PRAM are things such as the settings in the Monitors control
panel, the AppleTalk control panel, the General Settings control panel, the Startup
Disk control panel, and the Time and Date control panel.
Unfortunately, PRAM can occasionally get corrupted, causing unforeseen errors.
Some of those errors will make sense now that you know what’s stored in PRAM —
settings in control panels. If you’re getting odd errors involving startup disks,
control panels, time, dates, or AppleTalk, it’s possibly a problem with PRAM. In fact,
there are tons of reasons to zap PRAM, a process that resets PRAM to its factory
default values:
4 Strange settings. The date and time are set to odd times, the color scheme on
your Mac is wrong, or your monitor starts up in the wrong resolution or in
grayscale.
4 A port seems “jammed.” You can’t seem to get anything to work on an
external SCSI connection, you can’t get a modem to dial out using a serial port
connection, or your Mac refuses to send print jobs (or sends bizarre
characters) to the printer.
-f Startup disk trouble. You’ve gotten a startup error (Sad Mac, blinking disk
icon) and can’t get around It using the “C” key to boot from a CD-ROM or
§§-Option-Shift-Delete to boot from a secondary drive.
Other symptoms could have something to do with corrupt PRAM, but aren’t
necessarily always PRAM-related at face value — issues such as a monitor screen
not coming on, seemingly random error messages, and troubles with sound. You’ll
also find that resetting parameter RAM doesn’t always do the trick; sometimes
these symptoms are actually the result of PRAM resetting itself, usually because the
PRAM battery is dying.
Zapping PRAM
Zapping PRAM is just an energetic way of saying you wipe the PRAM clean of its
current values, returning it to its original factory settings. The process of zapping
PRAM will root out any corruption in that special area of memory, usually getting
rid of whatever was causing the trouble and enabling the Mac to once again boot
safely. That isn’t always the case, though, as PRAM isn’t always responsible for your
problems. Still, it can overcome some mysterious Issues.
Chapter 22 -f Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 583
Zapping PRAM also deletes some settings you probably liked having in your
system — like the correct time, the state of AppleScript, and so on. Once you zap
PRAM, you’ll need to reset those control panels manually. It can be something of a
pain, but it’s also something you should do instantly. The reason: If you forget
you’ve reset PRAM, you may start to notice other errors — your network no longer
functioning normally, for example — that could easily persuade you that other
demons have inhabited your Mac. To avoid that, it’s important to hit all the control
panels after zapping PRAM.
There are two generally accepted ways to go about zapping PI^M. The completely
free method for zapping PRAM is as follows:
1. Restart your Macintosh.
2. Immediately after hearing the Macintosh chime for startup, hold down the
keys §€-Option-P-R.
3. Continue to hold the keys down until you hear the Mac startup chime two
more times.
4. Release the keys.
Your Mac should begin to start up as it normally would, except you’ll likely notice a
few differences. Your Mac may start up in a grayscale mode, and it might start with
a lower screen resolution, making everything on the screen seem bigger than
normal. Once the Finder loads, you might notice other odd behaviors, such as the
clock being set to an odd time.
Notice I mentioned allowing the Mac to chime two times after you’ve begun zapping;
the actual recommended number varies widely among Mac users and administrators.
Apple's official stance is two chimes, but opinions range from a single restart tone to
eight restart tones. My suggestion: Restart twice. If you don't think that did everything
to PRAM that it should have, zap it a couple more times, or switch to TechTool.
The other way to reset PRAM is to use a third-party tool to do it. By far the favorite
in this category is the freeware version of TechTool from Micromat
(WWW .mi cromat . com). One of its options enables you not only to reset PRAM in a
tried and tested manner, but also to avoid cycling through the PRAM reset tones
multiple times.
TechTool, available on the CD-ROM included with this book, enables you not only to zap
PRAM, but also to save and restore PRAM settings. This can be useful if you've recently
zapped PRAM, and then reset all the important settings — you can actually make a copy of
the PRAM settings before any corruption gets a chance to set in (see Figure 22-5).
584 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Figure 22-5: TechTool enables you to save, zap, and
restore PRAM settings.
The latest version of TechTool will correctly zap PRAM and the NVRAM (nonvolatile
video RAM) existant on PCI systems. But if you’re zapping by hand, you’ll have to
be careful to do it exactly right. NVRAM can also get corrupted and is worth
clearing at the same time you clear PRAM. Here’s the drill:
1. Instead of restarting the Mac, shut it all the way down.
2. Start up the Mac from cold, and immediately hold down §§-Option-P-R.
3. Wait for two chimes, and then release the keys.
What’s stored in NVRAM is reset separately from what’s stored in PRAM. You’ll have
to get to the keys very quickly after starting up to reset the NVRAM, and then the
process becomes the same.
r Cross-
Reference^
Apple also recommends a slightly different course of action for Po\A/erBook owners
when it comes to PRAM. See Chapter 29 for details.
PRAM battery
The PRAM battery is the power source that maintains these settings after your
Macintosh has been powered down. Generally speaking, the PRAM battery, usually
a small lithium battery, either cylindrical or boxy (see Figure 22-6), is user-
serviceable. It’s expected to last about five years, but can go more quickly,
especially if your Mac sits idle quite a bit of the time (or if it sat on the shelf for a
while before you bought it). Two years isn’t unheard of, but many people end up
replcicing the battery in three to four years.
chapter 22 ♦ Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 585
Figure 22-6: Typical PRAM battery sizes
Indications that the battery has gone bad can range from machine to machine, but
there are some basic similarities. Essentially, the machine acts as if PRAM has been
zapped, even if all you’ve done is start it up recently. This includes resetting the
internal date to either 1904 or 1956, losing time on the clock, and changing your
AppleTalk setting. This can also be seen in changes to color depth, resolution, or
the inability of video to appear after a power on. Others report even more
catastrophic consequences, such as a Mac that appears completely dead.
These batteries come in two basic voltages — 3.6 volts (the cylindrical one) and 4.5
volts (the boxy one). There have actually been only a couple of Apple part numbers
used to reference these batteries: The 3.6 volt battery used in most Macs is part
number 742-0011, whereas the 4.5 volt battery used in the all-in-one Performa 500
series along with Performa, LC, and Mac/Power Mac models 630-6400 is part
number 922-0750.
Later Mac models (7100 and above) tend to use a second cylindrical battery, part
number 922-1262. The clone machines tend to use their own batteries, too; you’ll
want to investigate by reading your Mac clone’s manual or opening the machine
and locating the batteries.
These batteries aren’t completely unheard of outside of the Macintosh world. If you
remove the battery and take it to a computer or electronics store, they’ll likely be
able to get you a replacement. Obviously, you’ll have the least trouble with an
Apple branded battery.
586 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Removing these batteries is fairly simple, although getting to them is not in all
cases. Consult your manual. You may need to remove drive cages, power supplies,
or other internal parts before you can expose the PRAM battery. (Fortunately, you’ll
only have to do this every three years or so.)
Once you find the battery, removing it depends on the battery type. For the
cylindrical batteries, you remove the plastic battery guard from the logic board by
grasping it and pulling straight up. (You might need to pull a bit harder than you’d
imagine.) Next, you pry it out of its battery slot (a positive/negative battery bed
typical of consumer electronics). Replace it with the new battery as you would any
AA or AAA-type battery, aligning the positive and negative sides correctly. Replace
the battery guard by lining it up, pressing the far sides slightly inward and pushing
it back down into place (see Figure 22-7).
Figure 22-7: The typical battery setup in most Mac models.
If your Mac features the 4.5 volt battery, you’ll remove it by removing its wiring
connector from the logic board. (Note the position of the connector so you can
replace the new battery’s connector correctly.) Next, detach the battery from its
velcro-style attachment to the motherboard. Reverse the process to replace the
battery.
Chapter 22 4- Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 587
Evangelista tips: PRAM battery issues
More so than just about any other troubleshooting issue, Evangelistas have spoken out
about their PRAM batteries. When I first started with Macs, PRAM was hardly even men-
tioned except in Mac Secrets — \t didn't seem like the root of so much evil.
Of course, since that time, many more millions of Mac owners have bought Macs — espe-
cially Quadras, Centrises, and Performas. And those Macs have started to get a little gray at
the temples. As they push three to five years of age, the PRAM battery starts to go.
Technical editor Dennis Sellers noted this first situation to me: There's a nonstandard
PRAM-related item involving the PowerMac 5400 and others that include the Apple TV/FM
Tuner and a remote control. Occasionally the machine will start up from the remote control,
but from then on will not respond to the remote at all. One way to remedy this is to power
the machine all the way down and unplug the power cable for a couple of minutes. Plug it
back in, turn the rocker (or pushbutton) back to the "on" position, and you should once
again have the use of the remote control.
Here are more of the best tips sent to me from Evangelistas who've lived through the death
of a PRAM battery. See how your experiences relate to theirs:
"A while back when I was the primary support person for hundreds of Macs in the field, I
started replacing a large number of Quadra 605 Macs which, for some reason, would not
start up and would produce no video. I would get them in, swap out a power supply, and
they would work. I couldn't figure out any other reason for the change in behavior, and I
was looking at replacing about two dozen power supplies. Then one time I swapped out
the lithium battery and the system worked. After some investigation, I determined that in
any Mac that turns on via a power switch rather than the power key on the keyboard, one
symptom of a dead battery is that you will get no video. This was at odds with systems that
start via the keyboard since then you will usually get video, but the system will forget the
time and date, and so on. This one had me going for quite a while so you might want to
warn owners of Centris/Quadra 605/610 and PowerMac 6100s of this fact" -Rick Emery
"With some Power Macs, when the lithium battery dies, it seems as though your computer
does, too. What do you do if you need to access an important file ASAP, but you can't get
past that blank screen? Well, first turn your computer on for a few seconds. Let the blank
screen stay on for about 10 seconds. Then turn off the computer, wait about 5 seconds, and
turn it back on. With any bit of luck, after a few seconds of warming up your computer will
have a normal startup."- David Lublin
"My first Mac was a Performa 450 (which is equivalent to an LC III). One day, when I turned
on my Mac, it made the normal startup chime and then . . . did nothing! No Happy Mac, no
Sad Mac, no blinking floppy, no error codes, not even a gray screen -just nothing! At first I
thought my monitor was broken or unplugged, but (after repeated attempts at booting) I
noticed that there was no hard disk activity. Mysterious.
"I scoured all my Mac books and magazines to no avail. None of them mentioned anything
like this. About two months after the trouble started, I finally found the cause: The PRAM
battery was dead (and I mean DEAD — it didn't even twitch the needle on my multimeter).
A replacement (about $10) brought my Quadra back to life, and then I had two working
Macs." — Bill Smith
588 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
Post-PRAM zapping
Once you’ve replaced a battery or zapped PRAM, you should make a point of
immediately resetting most of the settings that got zapped so you don’t mistake
zapped behavior for other problems. One of the better ways to do this is using
TechTool, which can restore PI^M settings from a saved copy.
Here are the control panels you should visit after a PRAM reset:
♦ Startup Disk
> Time and Date
4 Monitor (or Monitors & Sound)
4 General Controls
4 Desktop Pattern
4 Chooser (for AppleTalk settings)
4 AppleTalk (or Network)
You may encounter others, depending on your Mac model and OS version. In any
case, when you zap PRAM remember that you’ll probably find bizarre setting
choices for the next few hours or days of use.
Trouble with RAM
Early failures in the startup process can often be a sign of poorly installed RAM,
especially if you’ve recently installed new RAM modules or if you’ve been inside
your Mac doing other things. Because RAM is solid state, it’s usually either good or
bad when it comes off the assembly line. It rarely fails of its own volition, but it is
very susceptible to power surges and extremely sensitive to static electricity
discharge. You should always be electrically grounded and handle RAM carefully
when working with it.
startup RAM problems
Here are some troubleshooting approaches to try if you get a RAM error code, a Sad
Mac or an error tone:
Check the RAM module. It’s not impossible to install some RAM modules
backward, although it certainly isn’t encouraged. You might also have
installed the module in its slot without making perfect contact between the
modules pins and the I^M socket. If part of the module is sticking up out of
the slot or the small metal (or plastic) hooks that keep the module In place
aren’t properly secured, this could cause some errors.
Chapter 22 > Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 589
Check the RAM placement. Read your Mac’s manual carefully to determine
which RAM slots are best for the configuration of RAM you have. You may,
for instance, need to group like RAM modules together. You should also try a
different RAM slot on the off chance that the one you’re using is bad.
4 Check the number of modules. In many Macs, it’s important to upgrade RAM
using more than one module at a time. If you insert just one module, you may
see no suggestion of that RAM in the About This Macintosh (or About This
Computer) window, or you might get errors such as a Sad Mac icon. Check
your manual and Chapter 8 carefully to see if you need a particular number of
RAM modules to upgrade at one time.
4 - Try the module in another computer. If you’re fortunate enough to have
another, compatible computer lying around, insert the module in that
computer and see if it results in an error. If it does, the module is very likely
bad. If it doesn’t, there could be something wrong with your Mac’s logic board
or another RAM module in your Mac.
If you suspect that a RAM module is bad, you can always just take it (instead of
your entire computer) to a service center to have it checked. They should be able
to test the module to see if it needs to be replaced.
other RAM trouble
Although most of your memory woes will probably occur at startup, there are other
times that RAM can be a problem. A poorly seated RAM module can get by the
Startup Manager and result in bizarre system errors and crashes, much the same
way a dirty or dusty Mac interior can sometimes affect the performance of RAM.
You can clean a RAM module if necessary; usually blowing on it very lightly and
placing it between your hands and a soft, lint-free cloth should clean it well enough.
You might also be able to install a RAM module, and then not see it in the Finder
when you choose About This Computer from the Apple menu. This could be a
result of the module not being seated, not being fully compatible with your system,
or not being installed in pairs, if that’s necessary for your Mac model (see your
manual and Chapter 8).
On older Mac systems, you may not be able to see all the memory your Mac has
installed if you haven’t turned on 32-bit addressing in the Memory control panel
Do this and restart your Mac again. Check the About This Computer (or About
his Macintosh) item in the Apple menu and you should see the memory appear.
If you install more RAM than your Mac is rated to accept, it may cut off at the
maximum level governed by ROM code and not make the extra RAM available. It
may also result in crashes and system errors. More recent Macs (7300, 8600, 9600,
G3 series) tend to be limited only by the number of DIMM module slots and the
current RAM technology that’s available. For instance, two new memory modules
590 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
that offered, say, 512MB of memory each could theoretically be used to upgrade a
Macintosh G3 to 1GB of RAM if they fit in the slots, even though the G3 is only rated
for 384MB of RAM. However, Apple may not have tested that higher configuration of
RAM, and therefore the company may not guarantee it’ll work correctly.
Other times, it’s certainly possible for you to simply get a RAM module that’s
slightly less compatible with your Mac than others, due to the workmanship, the
connectors, and, often, the speed. You should only add RAM that has the same
speed rating — the speed recommended for your Mac — in nanoseconds (ns). The
best rule of thumb is to follow this for all RAM upgrades inside your Mac, even if
your Mac specifically matches RAM in banks. If 70 ns RAM is recommended for your
Mac model, choose 70 ns for all your RAM modules.
This may be overkill, but it's often recommended that the best way to keep from hav-
ing the most mysterious, circuit-level incompatibilities is to buy RAM from the same
manufacturer. That won't guarantee flawless operation, but it certainly can't hurt —
unless you are forced to pay a premium for the identical modules, I suppose.
Cache RAM
There’s another type of RAM to talk about — cache RAM — that’s known to cause
more than a few headaches. You’ll find that cache RAM can be at fault in the case of
sudden, dramatic slow downs, or even crashes, suggesting the RAM has gone bad
or was installed incorrectly. (Installing and working with cache RAM is discussed
back in Chapter 6.)
On 68040 Macs, a special cache was added to the logic board to speed up many
programs. Unfortunately, not all Mac programs were compatible with that cache.
So, a control panel is added to the machine when you install a Mac OS version that
supports the 68040, called Cache Switch. The control panel gives you the option of
shutting off the 68040’s cache if you think there’s a chance the cache is causing
problems with older applications.
The Performa 5400 and 6400 series of Macs, including some Mac OS clone
computers based on the same logic board (a PCI-based logic board that doesn’t
offer daughtercard upgradeability) had a problem with Mac OS 7.6.1, which would
sometimes disable the level 2 cache. A fix (54xx/64xx L2 Cache Reset) has been
added to subsequent Mac OS versions and can be downloaded from the Apple
Support Web site.
Power Macintosh 7500 machines had a known problem with Apple and third-party
cache RAM modules. If you install a cache RAM module in one of these machines
and it fails to start up, you should contact Apple or the vendor for assistance.
Chapter 22 4- Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 591
Ports
One of the reasons Apple recommends that you plug and unplug devices from the
ports with the Mac's power off is there is often a trickle of power that's exchanged
through devices that use the Mac’s ADB, serial, and parallel ports. Sometimes that
electricity is a very real part of the ports operation; at other times there’s simply a
fear of static electricity discharge or the possibility that you’ll plug the wrong cable
into the wrong port, resulting in an electrical short or similar problem.
So, the first trick is to make a habit of shutting down your Mac before swapping
cables. Also, make another habit of checking the port’s label before plugging
something into it — even if you feel as though you know the ports like you know
your own name. Check the cable in your hand, and then check the port. Make sure
you’re not plugging the wrong cable into the wrong port, which can be not only
pointless but damaging.
With serial devices, you should make very sure that the device is grounded. 1 have
seen modem ports rendered useless because a modem attached to the port got hit
by an electrical surge. What’s worse is modem surges are often received from the
phone line, not the power supply. Make sure you run your modem’s phone
connections through a surge protector — many have RJ-11 ports specifically for this
purpose.
Ports will occasionally get left hanging by software or hardware; they can require
resetting like any other software/hardware device on a Macintosh. Apple doesn’t
provide a utility for this, but the freeware Reset Serial Port progrcim can be used to
close a serial port that’s been left open by a terminal program or PPP dialup
connector. If this doesn’t work, restarting the Mac will often reset the port, and
reports have it that zapping the PRAM may do the same. (See Chapter 26 for help
troubleshooting serial devices such as modems and printers.)
Resetting PRAM can also affect problems with microphone and speaker ports, as
well as clear up some SCSI port blockage. (SCSI is covered more thoroughly in
Chapter 23.)
Heat Trouble
A faulty power supply in your Mac can create some weird — and some not so weird —
problems. Not-so-weird problems are things like the Mac not turning on, the Mac
suddenly losing power, or the Mac smoking and cracking. These could all be
attributed to the power supply.
592 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Evangelista tips: Ports and port connectors
Here are a few more tips from Evangelistas, these relating directly to problems with ports:
"Most of the support stuff I do is for friends and colleagues who are less than fully literate
with computers. One of the more common problems I see with peripherals is the 'bent
plug pin,' where someone has tried to jam in a serial (or similar) cable and has bent a pin
in the process.
"My solution (which I've never seen written up anywhere, even though I can't believe it
because it's so simple) is to use a mechanical pencil with the lead pulled out. I believe a
0.7mm pencil works best. It leaves just enough play to straighten out small kinks, and
a good enough grab to gently bend the entire pin back into place." — Bob Boyle
"While I was working as a service repair tech in Cincinnati, a guy called up and asked if I
could come over right away to fix his problem. He explained that he just moved his com-
puter to a different location in the same office and he could not print. He was desperate
and did not want to 'troubleshoot' over the phone because he needed something printed
right away.
"I asked him if he could see the printer in the Chooser. He couldn't Then I asked him if he
was using serial cable or phone line to connect the printer to the computer. He was using
phone cable. I told him to unplug all the connections and put it back together. Still nothing
showed up in the Chooser. *Just come over and look at it/ he says. I suggested one last
thing: There are two places to plug in the AppleTalk box in the back of the computer. Is your
printer plugged into the printer port?'
'Turns out it wasn't. The conversation lasted about four minutes. It would have cost him
$140.00 if I had gone right away to his office instead."— J. Brian Rowe, Mac Consultant,
Cincinnati
"Label your power bricks (external power supplies). Under the typical table we can find
power bricks for a Zip drive, speakers, modem, printer, camera, printing hub, and so on.
They all seem to be the same— that is, they all have the same tip. But are they?
"It turns out that if you plug a 12V AC supply (like the StyleWriter power brick) into a device
that wants regulated 5V DC (like the Sonic EtherPrint2), you will smoke the device. How
does anyone know this, but from personal experience? Ouch.
"I now label all my power bricks with my little Pocket LabelMaker."- Allan M. Schwartz,
WWW . concentric . net/'-Ams
"Never connect a monitor (15-pin) to an AAUI Ethernet port! Unless, of course, you're curi-
ous about how much smoke can be generated." — Mark Marinello
Chapter 22 ^ Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 593
Often enough, though, the power supply will decide to be more devious than this,
causing only intermittent problems. Some of these can be related to the power
supply itself; in my experience, a faulty power supply is capable of causing trouble
that looked a whole lot like a heavily corrupted hard drive, whereas other problems
created by the power supply can seem heat related.
The case can contribute to this as well. Your Mac’s case was built to move air
through the Mac and dissipate heat through its industrial design, which is why it’s
important to run your Mac with the case assembled unless you’re troubleshooting
a particular problem. That’s also why you should clean the case of dust and lint, as
well as clean the power supply fan and keep your Mac’s insides from getting too
cluttered by wayward cables and, sometimes, expansion cards that are too hot.
The power supply
Heat is a big problem when it comes to your Mac. Many Mac models will shut
themselves down if they reach a certain temperature. Sometimes heat will cause
such things as random crashing (especially if the processor or RAM gets too hot),
file corruption, and spontaneous rebooting. Hard drives and other storage devices
can seem to fail, perhaps because either the drive mechanism or the SCSI interface
is too hot. If heat is the problem, it will very often create symptoms that you feel
certain have to do with something else.
First and foremost, make sure your power supply fan is working. Listen carefully for
the hum — if you can, train yourself to listen for it as your Mac starts up and
occasionally while you’re working. If problems set in 15 to 30 minutes after you
start working, immediately inspect the fan. Make sure it’s turning, that it spins at a
healthy pace, and that it’s not blocked with hair, grime, or dust. Also, make sure it’s
not blocked by a wall, desk leg, trash can, or something else that may be affecting
its ability to move air into the case.
If you have a Power Macintosh 7300, 7500, or 7600 (and possibly similar, newer
models), don't be surprised to hear the fan changing speeds -it's actually designed
to vary its speeds depending on the cooling needs of the Mac's components.
Even when you aren’t having trouble, clean the power supply fan regularly. Try to
pull as much blockage out of the fan as possible (you may want to ground yourself
and unplug the Mac first) before attacking it with compressed air. Remember, if you
blow the dust into the machine, you may not be helping matters as much. Small
vacuums made for personal computers can be even more effective.
594 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
The case
Similarly, dust and lint inside the case can cause problems, mostly by blocking
airflow and causing heat to build up inside the case. (I’ve heard stories of enough
dust building up inside a case for a small electrical charge to arc inside it and fry
some components, but such tales may be apocryphal.) In any case, cleaning inside
is a good idea.
With yourself grounded and the Mac unplugged, you can use compressed air or a
small computer vacuum (the better choice), although I’d encourage you to use a
dry rag to get most of the dust out of the case before resorting to gimmicks. Avoid
spraying compressed air directly on circuit boards (especially at close distances)
cind focus very closely on the air-intake ducts and any other holes in the case, like
drive bays and floppy openings. Focus your cleaning on the inside of the case itself
and not just components.
While you’re in there, you should also make sure that the processor fan is
connected correctly (if you have one) and that its power connector is snugly
installed.
Airflow is also an argument against positioning your Mac’s case in any way other
than its original design — for instance, by turning a Mac II style case on its side to
make it look like a minitower. This could cause airflow and heat problems.
(Fortunately, we all feel less compelled to do this with modern models because it
becomes tough to use the CD-ROM drive.)
Summary
> When a Macintosh won’t power on, it may seem as if there’s nothing you can
do but take it to the shop. That’s not completely true, however. Power-on
problems aren’t completely unknown, and they don’t always happen for the
reasons you may think. It’s important to carefully troubleshoot a machine that
won’t seem to turn on — the problem could be a simple matter of
configuration.
> Parameter RAM, or PRAM, can be the source of many problems. Designed to
hold settings from the time you shut the Mac down until the time you start
the Mac back up again, PRAM has a tendency to get a little scrambled when
your Mac encounters other problems. That can lead to some bizarre behavior
that’s otherwise a bit tough to trace to its source.
Chapter 22 -f Startup Problems, Memory, and Ports 595
RAM and cache RAM can cause their share of headaches as well. And, again,
because this is part of the processor subsystems, the errors can sometimes
be less than helpful in pointing out the problem; it just feels as though your
Mac is crashing sporadically or having trouble completing basic tasks. Such
problems could be due to an unseated RAM module, a problem with your
cache settings, or even a slight defect that causes incompatibilities.
4“ Ports don’t usually cause too much trauma on their own, but plugging the
wrong thing into the wrong port is one way to cause trouble in a hurry. Aside
from that, ports usually respond to application or system errors. Sometimes a
port gets left “open,” other times they seem generally inaccessible. You can
usually fix this, though.
storage Devices,
SCSI, and File
Recovery
W hen it comes to storage devices, there are plenty of
problems to go around. It really isn’t a question of
whether a hard drive or the hard drive’s file system is going to
fail, it’s a questions of when. The physical hard drive has a
limited lifespan to begin with, and then you start throwing it
all these files. Those files have the potential to get corrupted,
overwritten, misplaced, or, in certain circumstances,
confused.
The problem is your Mac pretty much relies on its hard
drive to get started and keep going. The Mac is built on the
assumption the hard drive won’t fail and software problems
on the hard drive won’t become severe enough that they
affect the Mac’s ability to start itself up. But both hardware
and software problems can contribute to other problems with
your Mac — including problems so severe that you can’t use
the Mac at all.
Most of the time, the fix is a software-related one:
maintenance. If you keep your desktop files rebuilt,
defragment your hard drive, and run a disk doctor program
on a regular basis, you’re much less likely to encounter
problems. (Creating such a routine and troubleshooting other
software and system software issues is discussed in the last
part of this book.)
But even if you’re adamant about maintenance, you can still
encounter a storage problem that brings your Mac to its
knees. When that happens, the first thing to determine is
whether the problem lies with the software (corruption,
conflict, or bugs) or the hardware. You do that by following
certain troubleshooting steps in response to error messages
that the Mac offers as guidance. This chapter covers those
steps.
4
In This Chapter
Troubleshooting when
the "X" or icons
appear
SCSI trouble
Drivers, mounting,
and testing
Formatting,
partitioning, and
HFS Plus
Recovering files and
folders
4 4 ^ 4 ^
598 Part 1114 Troubleshoot and Repair
ril also talk about some other nitty-gritty issues involving storage devices,
including the low-level driver software used to get the hard drive to talk to your
Mac. In addition, 1 want to quickly cover formatting and partitioning a drive,
because there’s important new technology you should know about Mac drives.
None of this stuff is really that complicated, even if it seems intimidating at the
outset. Hard drive maintenance and recovery are things that nearly any Mac user
can pull off.
Cross- \ Backup solutions, software, and strategies (the three S's) are covered in Chapter 9;
0 erenc^ hard drive installation is covered in Chapter 7.
startup Issues
First things first — what’s the most traumatic thing that can happen to a Mac user?
It’s probably the appearance of a Sad Mac icon or a Mac that won’t power on at all.
These can be pretty disconcerting. But a startup problem with a hard drive ranks
really high up there on the list. This error occurs as the Mac starts up, usually right
after the startup tone. When one of these errors pops up, it stops the system cold.
A hard drive startup problem manifests itself as a blinking “X” or a blinking “?”,
usually on top of a little disk icon. These problems really aren’t as scary as
they might seem, even if they do portend the possibility you’ll be messing around
with your Mac — instead of working on it productively — for the next few minutes
or more.
Troubleshooting when the "X" icon appears
Symptom: The Mac starts up, chimes, and then displays a blinking icon.
The blinking “X” simply means the Mac couldn’t find a valid System Folder on the
disk that’s currently inserted in the floppy drive. Most of the time, you probably
didn’t mean to have the floppy in there and didn’t want the system to boot from it
anyway. If that’s the case, just wait a few moments; the disk will be ejected, and the
Mac will continue to look for a valid System Folder.
If you did want to boot from the floppy, you’ll need to check the floppy after the
Mac has booted (or use another Mac) to make sure a System Folder has been
placed on the floppy and that the System Folder has been blessed (that is, that the
System Folder contains a System file). (See Chapter 33 for how to create a System
startup floppy.)
Chapter 23 > Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 599
There may also be something wrong with the floppy disk itself. Try using another
startup floppy and/or use Norton Utilities or Tech Tool Pro to troubleshoot the bad
floppy disk.
Troubleshooting when the icon appears
Symptom: Tlie Mac starts up, chimes, and then displays a blinking “?” icon.
This problem can have more far-reaching consequences. At its most basic, it’s
telling you that the Mac has searched everywhere it knows to look, but can’t find a
startup disk with a valid System Folder.
There can be many causes for a blinking “?” icon. Usually they have something to
do with the hard drive you’re trying to use as a startup drive: It’s either not
properly connected, it’s not functioning correctly, or software has been corrupted
on the drive. (Another cause for a “?” is a faulty logic board, something observed
especially in the Mac II series, although I’ve also personally seen it happen in the
Quadra series — and any Mac model is susceptible. If your problem doesn’t seem
related to your hard drive, troubleshoot the logic board in Chapter 22, or consult an
Apple authorized service center.)
Note If you have a late-model PowerPC Performa or some Power Macintosh models with
IDE drives, the blinking "?" icon could be the result of a known issue with versions of
Drive Setup that predate Drive Setup 1.3.1. Upgrade to version 1.3.1, 1.4, or later to
solve this problem (download these from Apple's Support Web site). With the latest
Drive Setup installed, select Functions Update Driver.
why "?" appears
Most of the time, a blinking “?” issue is related to something you’ve recently done
or changed. It suggests that the System Folder on your Mac’s startup drive (and any
others attached) can’t be found. If you’ve been doing some spring cleaning on your
hard drive, physically installed another drive, or added some new software, you
may have inadvertently done something to trigger this response from the Mac.
Here are some of the typical causes for a blinking
4 The Mqc os system software is missing or damaged. Actually, the real problem
is the Mac’s Start Manager can’t find a b/essed System Folder — that is, a
System Folder with a valid System file in it. This can be the result of file
corruption, a physically damaged hard drive, a user mistake, or a momentary
glitch.
> Parameter RAM is corrupted. PRAM tells the Mac which of your drives the
currently selected Startup disk is supposed to be. If that information (or
600 Part III 'f Troubleshoot and Repair
similar data in PRAM) becomes corrupted, it can confuse the Mac into
believing it can’t find a blessed System Folder.
^ There is a SCSI problem. As detailed in Chapter 22, the Start Manager will
usually take a look at PRAM to determine which drive is supposed to be the
startup drive. If that one can’t be found, the SCSI chain will be searched (from
high SCSI ID to low SCSI ID) for a drive with a valid System Folder on it. It
there’s a SCSI configuration problem or conflict, this process can easily be
thwarted.
> The drive is misconfigured. This can often have something to do with the
drive’s driver software, especially in instances where a drive is incorrectly
updated with a driver that’s not designed for the drive or not designed for the
current Mac OS that’s being run on the machine.
> The drive is damaged. If the drive has “died” or has other physical problems
(including severe file damage or physical damage to the internal drive
mechanisms), that might manifest itself as a blinking “?” issue.
Occasionally an extension conflict can cause a “?” problem, as can bugs in the Mac
OS. If your Mac has been working normally, however, you’re unlikely to suddenly
encounter this trouble unless something has very recently changed — you zapped
PRAM or installed new software. If that is the case, you’ve got a good idea of what
caused the problem. Whatever you just did is the likely culprit.
Evangelista tip: Sometimes if s the drive
Sometimes you’ll have a problem that’s a mysterious configuration issue -and sometimes it’s
just a bad drive. Don’t rule out the possibility that the hardware is a lemon. Hard drives (and
other computer components) are defective more often than anyone would like to admit.
But the best way to get that drive replaced, especially if it’s under an Apple warranty, is by
testing it yourself. This tip, from Mac Evangelista Hunt Sidway of Louisville, KY, explains how:
”1 once spent months with the defective hard disk in my Power Mac 7300, during which
time I stumbled onto a quick way to determine if one's hard disk is defective: Back up the
drive (if you can) and test it.
"Start up from your Mac OS CD-ROM. Rather than use Disk First Aid, go to Drive Setup, and
in the menu bar, under Functions, select Test Disk. This performs a low-level, block-by-block
test of the actual disk itself, and is the best and most thorough way to test for a hardware
or firmware problem versus a software or extension problem. It can take 45 minutes or
more for 2GB and larger disks, so plan on being unproductive for a while. [Note: These tests
destroy all data on the drive.]
"When 1 ran the test, it could never even complete - not even once!
(continued)
Chapter 23 -f Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 0Q 1
(continued)
"Each time, the test would abort before completion, giving me a message that the test had
quit due to unrecoverable disk errors. I tried one last test, just out of curiosity, and came up
with a sound principle for testing a suspect disk: I ran a low-level format with write-to-zeros,
in Disk First Aid. (That took 50 minutes.)
"Then, before installing any software, I ran the Test Disk function in Drive Setup. As I
expected, the test quit with the same ominous message. That left no questions for Apple
tech support. It had to be replaced.
"System freeze-ups? Think you might have a hard drive problem? Even if the problem is
intermittent, don't waste a lot of time. Back up your data if you can, do the low-level format
with write-to-zeros, and then run Test Disk. That will give you a clear indicator of a bad
drive, which might help you get a new drive more quickly from Apple."
Note: See the section of this chapter called "There's no drive icon" for information on which
version of Drive Setup you should use. Also realize that these tests all destroy data on the
drive, so a good backup is a must.
what to do about the blinking "?" icon
First, make sure youVe v^aited long enough. Sometimes a blinking “?” icon will show
up while the Mac is still trying to find other drives on the SCSI chain or waiting for
a bootable CD-ROM drive to spin up. In fact, you can get a quick blinking “?” for no
other reason than having a bad setting in the Startup Disk control panel. If you get a
blinking “?”, wait. If it resolves itself, check the Startup Disk control panel and make
sure the control panel is set to the correct startup disk — usually your Mac’s main
internal drive.
The next quick fix when you have a blinking is to try zapping PRAM. It’s not
really harmful to do this, and it sometimes will cause a blinking "?” to simply
disappear. PRAM holds settings related to the startup disk that could get corrupted.
Even if you do recover in this way and your Mac starts up correctly, it would be a
good idea to run Norton or TechTool to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with
the startup drive as a result.
r Cross- A Chapter 22 covers zapping PRAM and related issues. Working with disk fix utilities is
Referenc^ covered later in the chapter in the section "Recovering Files and Folders."
If both waiting and zapping PRAM fail, the next step is get your Mac to boot in some
other way. You need to bring the Mac OS up so you can troubleshoot the problem
and find the source. Your best bet is to start the Mac from a Mac OS CD-ROM, using
the Mac’s internal CD-ROM drive. (If you don’t have a CD-ROM drive, you can also
boot from a floppy. See the sidebar “Creating a boot disk” for recommendations on
creating a boot floppy.)
602 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
Note
To boot from a Mac OS CD-ROM, follow these steps:
1. Place the Mac OS CD-ROM in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Restart the Macintosh. (Push the CD-ROM back into the drive if the tray auto-
ejects.)
If all goes well, the Mac should find and boot from the CD-ROM on its own. (It may
display the blinking “?” for a moment before finding the CD-ROM drive.) If it doesn’t,
try restarting the Mac, and hold down the C key or §€-Option-Shift-Del until “?”
disappears and/or the Welcome to Mac OS screen appears. Note that you need to
start with a Mac OS 8.1 or higher CD-ROM if your hard drive is formatted in HFS
Plus. Otherwise, you won’t see the contents of the drive.
This should allow you to circumvent problems with the System software, trouble
with the internal drive and, perhaps, trouble with PRAM. It won’t help you get
around some SCSI problems, however. If you have termination or configuration
issues on the SCSI chain, this could be affecting your CD-ROM drive as well as your
internal drives.
If you're dealing with a Mac OS clone computer, you might be best off booting from
the original system CD-ROM that came with the computer. The System Folder on that
CD should be best designed to interact with all the hardware in your system. Also,
clone users should note that the C key won't work for non-Apple CD-ROM drives.
Instead, hold down §i-Option-Shift-Delete to boot from the CD-ROM drive. Again, if
you've upgraded your hard drive to HFS Plus, you may not be able to see the contents
of your hard drive unless you boot up with a CD designed for Mac OS 8.1 or higher.
If your Mac still offers a blinking “?” after you’ve put a bootable CD in the CD-ROM
drive (and waited patiently), then there might be something wrong with the SCSI
chain. If you’ve recently installed an internal disk drive, you should go back and
check your SCSI termination according to instructions in Chapter 7; you may have
terminated the internal chain twice or otherwise terminated it incorrectly. There
may also be something else wrong with the drive installation.
If you haven’t changed anything Inside your Mac, there might be a problem
with your external SCSI chain. The best way to troubleshoot this is to simply
disconnect the device that’s attached directly to your Mac’s SCSI port. This way,
all SCSI devices are disconnected from the machine. Now you can try booting again
first without the CD (boot from the internal drive) and then with the CD-ROM. If you
have luck getting your system to come up, the problem is likely a SCSI configuration
issue.
Chapter 23 4- Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 603
If your Mac still doesn’t find its CD-ROM drive, though (or if you don’t have any
external SCSI devices), your next step is to boot from a floppy. You’ll need to have
already created a special boot floppy (the process is described in the sidebar that
follows). With it in hand, restart your Mac. Insert the floppy right after the Mac
restarts, and then wait. The Mac should boot from the floppy drive. It actually looks
for a System Folder in the floppy drive before looking anywhere else, including the
officially chosen startup drive in the Startup control panel.
From the floppy, you may be able to access the drive, run Disk Tools, or use the
Apple System Profiler to check the SCSI chain. At the very least, you should be able
to boot your Mac, check the drives, and load control panels for your CD-ROM drive
and the startup drive, which may help you restart your Mac with more success (see
Figure 23-1).
Figure 23-1: Booted from a floppy- the Disk Tools disk is now the startup drive,
enabling me to troubleshoot my main hard drive.
604 Part 1114^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Creating a boot disk
I haven't encountered a problem in a while that required a boot disk; I think the last time I
couldn't get the Mac OS to boot from a CD-ROM in a crisis was 1993. Still, it never hurts to
have a boot disk hanging around just in case the time comes when you need it (or if you
have a Mac that doesn't include a CD-ROM drive). I also encourage boot disks for Mac
clone users who don't have Apple CD-ROM drives. Some of the characteristic Apple
CD-ROM drive behavior is hard-coded on the Apple CD-ROM's ROM chips, and clone ven-
dors tend to use third-party CD-ROM drives. They may not always act as expected.
If you have your original Macintosh software, it should have shipped with a disk called Disk
Tools. (Mac OS 8,0 and above sometimes include two disks.) This disk can be used to boot
a troubled Mac, plus it contains the Disk Tools software on it to allow you to troubleshoot
the internal hard drive of that Mac. If you don't have the Disk Tools disk, you can create one
from a Mac OS CD-ROM.
To create a boot disk:
1 . Insert your Mac OS CD-ROM.
2 . Locate and open the folder Disk Tools. (This may be at the root level of the CD, or it
may be buried in another folder such as Disk Images or Install Images.)
3 . In the Disk Tools folder, double-click the icon Make Disk Tools floppies. Apple's Disk
Copy utility opens.
4 . When prompted, insert a blank floppy disk for Disk Copy to use as the new Disk
Tools floppy.
5 . Confirm that you want the disk created.
Once the disk has been created, you should test it by trying to start up from the floppy.
(Restart and stick it in your floppy drive.) If the Make Disk Tools floppies program had you
create two Disk Tools disks, you'll find out which one is for your computer at this point.
Label the disk(s) and store it somewhere safe and convenient You'll be able to use this disk
in the most extreme emergency— when you can't get your hard drive, CD-ROM drive, or
removable media drive to boot the Mac.
If you've got a third-party CD-ROM drive, you need to take one more step to be able to
access the CD-ROM drive once you've booted from the floppy. Drag the CD-ROM Toolkit
extension into the Extensions folder In the System Folder on the Disk Tools floppy disk. If
there isn't enough room, consider deleting the Drive Setup Lite Program, as the plan will be
to boot from the floppy, and then fire up a CD-ROM such as the Mac OS system CD, Hard
Drive Toolkit, Norton Utilities, TechTool Pro or something similar.
Chapter 23 -f Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 605
If youVe successfully started up your Mac, wait patiently until the Finder has
loaded. Now you’ll need to check things out to see what the extent of the damage is
If you can’t find your Mac’s internal drive (the icon doesn’t appear on the screen),
you may have a SCSI conflict, a bad hard disk driver, or damaged hardware. If you
do see your drive’s icon, you should move on to troubleshooting a system software
problem.
If you can't even get your Mac to boot from a floppy, make sure you're using a floppy
that includes a reasonably current version of the Mac OS. Some newer Macs will not
boot using much older Mac OS versions. If this still doesn't help, you've likely got a
hardware problem. Try the troubleshooting procedures for when a Sad Mac icon
appears (in Chapter 22) and/or take your Mac to an authorized service center for
repairs.
No drive icon
If you’ve booted from a floppy or CD-ROM and you don’t see your hard drive’s
icon, it might have suffered some file damage and needs some help mounting. Try
running Disk First Aid. If the drive appears in the window, select the drive’s icon,
and then click the Repair icon. This should mount the drive. From here, follow Disk
First Aid’s instructions for repairing the drive.
If Disk First Aid doesn’t see the drive, try running Drive Setup or Apple HD SC Setup
(whichever is appropriate — consult the following note) and see if the drive
appears in its list. If it does, select it and choose Functions O Mount Volumes from
the menu. (You can also try this in a program such as FWB Hard Disk Toolkit,
Silverlining or SCSIProbe. It’s probably best to use the software that was employed
to format your drive in the first place.) If all goes well, this will mount the drive. It
may still be in a fragile state, but at least it’s been found and mounted.
If the drive still doesn't appear, it's either damaged or you have SCSI trouble. One test
is whether or not other drives appear. Do they? If not, the SCSI chain needs trou-
bleshooting. If they do, check the connections for the troubled drive very carefully.
(Check the SCSI troubleshooting section later in this chapter for more.)
Your next step should be to run Disk First Aid on the newly mounted drive. Select
the problem volume and choose the Repair option. After getting feedback from the
program, you may find that things have been fixed or that it recommends running a
more intensive disk fix program. If it does, use Norton Utilities or TechTool Pro to
fix the drive.
After you’ve been through all this, the moment of truth comes when you reboot the
Mac and see if the problem persists. You can try rebooting the volume itself (use
the Startup Disk control panel to set the drive as the startup disk), or reboot to the
floppy drive or CD-ROM. If you try the latter, check to see if the volume appears
once the Finder has loaded. If it does, you should test to see if it’ll boot on its own.
If it still can’t boot on its own, the problem has likely become a system software
issue (see the next section).
606 Part 1114 Troubleshoot and Repair
If the drive has disappeared again, this may suggest a problem with the hard disk’s
driver software. If this is an Apple-branded hard drive (if it came with an Apple
Macintosh computer), run the Apple Drive Setup utility. Select the drive and mount
it if necessary. Next, choose Functions O Update Driver from the menu. Drive Setup
may mount the drive itself after this. Restart the computer and see if the drive will
mount correctly.
Apple offers two major utilities for testing, initializing, and mounting hard drives.
Drive Setup is used by all Power Macintosh computers and any 68040-level Macs that
feature internal IDE hard drives. The Apple HD SC Setup utility is used for all other
Macs. (For more information, see the section on formatting hard drives later in this
chapter.)
If the drive is a non-Apple drive, follow instructions for the drive regarding the
installation or updating of the disk driver. In many cases, you’ll use Silverlining or
the FWB Hard Drive Toolkit to update the driver.
System software problem
If you were able to boot immediately from either a CD-ROM or a floppy disk, and
you’ve ruled out a SCSI conflict as described previously, then you may be having
trouble with the system software itself. In general, each Mac drive should have one
System Folder, and that System Folder needs to be properly ‘'blessed, ” so that it has
an active, working System file inside it.
Here’s the procedure for testing your System Folder:
1. Open the problem hard drive.
2. Locate the System Folder and open it.
3. Locate the System file. If it doesn’t appear in the folder, use the Mac’s Find
command to locate the System file. If you still can’t find the System file, you
should reinstall the Mac OS (see Chapter 33).
4. Double-click the System file. If it doesn’t open correctly, you should perform a
clean install of the Mac OS (or a replacement installation, as described in
Chapter 33).
5. If the System file opens correctly, it should be working. Close the System file.
You’re on your way to ruling out trouble with the System file. Your next step is to
determine if the System Folder has somehow lost its blessed status. The first
indicator of this is a System Folder icon that doesn’t include a small classic Mac
icon as part of the folder (see Figure 23-2).
chapter 23 4 Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 607
Figure 23-2: On the left, a blessed System Folder; on the right, a System Folder that
lost its blessing.
If your System Folder isn’t blessed, make sure there isn’t a second System Folder on
the hard drive. If there is, having two active System Folders on a single startup disk
can confuse the Mac. Take the System file from one of the System Folders and drag
it to another directory (the Fonts subdirectory in that particular System Folder is
always a fine choice). You should also rename the folder to Previous System Folder
or something similar to de-frock the System Folder.
If the only System Folder on your drive isn’t blessed, it may simply need to be re-
blessed:
1. Drag and drop the System file onto the Fonts directory icon (you can also
drag it to the Mac’s desktop).
2. Close the System Folder.
3. Reopen the System Folder and drag the System file back into the folder.
4. Close the System Folder again.
608 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Take a look at the System Folder’s icon now. Does it show the little Mac? If so, the
folder has been successfully re-blessed. Restart your Mac to see if the System
Folder takes hold and the Mac is able to restart from the drive. If it is, you should
still run some check-up maintenance on the drive (see Chapter 31 for help in
maintaining drives). If it’s not, try a clean reinstall (or a replacement installation) as
outlined in Chapter 33.
SCSI Trouble
Old Mac hands call the haze of trouble surrounding SCSI problems SCSI voodoo. In a
way, some of the issues that can crop up when you’re using SCSI devices can seem
a bit weird, counterintuitive or just plain wrong. More than one Mac repair expert
has given me the advice, “If it doesn’t work the way Apple or the manual says it
should, try it the exact opposite way.” The heck with theory, I guess.
SCSI probably creates fewer problems in the aggregate these days. Some of the
early confusion and glitches in self- and active-termination schemes have been
worked out, and many SCSI devices these days rely on a more standard system for
assigning and working with SCSI ID numbers. All the devices I’ve tested during the
writing phase of this book, for instance, worked fine with one another — not a single
complaint. I even had trouble purposefully getting SCSI connections to fail.
That doesn’t mean the problems don’t exist, however. Although many SCSI issues
can be chalked up to configuration, the world of SCSI has a history of gray areas
and things to watch out for. There are some new twists, too, such as Apple’s dual-
bus system for many of the latest Power Macs and the inclusion of ultra-SCSI
options on the build-to-order G3 (and higher) Mac models.
SCSI symptoms
Hopefully, SCSI-related problems will crop up soon after you change something that
is associated with SCSI — that’s a telltale sign. Sure, it’s not always that easy, but it
often is. If you’ve changed a device’s SCSI ID number, added a device, powered
down part of the chain or moved a terminator, that’s your first clue as to what’s
going wrong.
But the mysteries of SCSI run much deeper. Under some circumstances, the
following can all be symptoms of a SCSI problem:
> Apparently random crashes in the Finder or in applications
4 System freezes, especially when saving, scanning, or accessing another of the
SCSI devices
Chapter 23 -f Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 609
4“ Appearing and disappearing drives and icons
4 Read/write errors from hard drives and removable media
4 Removable media that won’t mount
4- System crash or freeze shortly after mounting a device
4 System crash or freeze shortly after startup
Although all of these problems can’t necessarily be attributed to SCSI in every case,
these are common symptoms that can help you narrow things down to SCSI
problems.
Fortunately, really only a finite number of things can be wrong with a SCSI device or
setup: configuration problems, cabling and termination, problematic hardware, or
bad hardware. Take a look at each in turn.
SCSI configuration
Here’s where you’re going to have a lot of trouble with SCSI devices. If you have
more than two or three external drives, scanners, and other devices, it’s certainly
possible that yon .simply made a mistake when connecting them, whether you loop
a cable back on itself, forget to terminate something, or use the same SCSI ID for
two different devices. (In fact, this should be a mantra for you: “No two IDs are the
same. No two IDs are the same.” It’s the single most common problem in SCSI
configuration aside from, perhaps, not turning the SCSI device on.)
Take a step back and consider your situation carefully. Ponder the possibilities. The
common SCSI problems are as follows:
4 SCSI cable not connected
4“ SCSI terminator not properly installed
4^ Same SCSI ID assigned to two different devices (including the typically
reserved internal SCSI ID numbers such as 0, 3, 7)
4- SCSI device not plugged in
4 * SCSI device not turned on
I introduced myself to a whole new world a few years ago when I decided to use
an external hard drive as the startup disk on one of my Power Mac systems. 1
don’t know how many times my heart seized up when I saw a blinking “?” as the
Mac started up. “The drive? All my data?! What’s wrong?!” I’d think. Then I’d gather
my wits and throw the power switch on the drive, followed by a quick reboot of
the Mac.
610 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
SCSI utilities
If it seems your problems are more complicated than simple configuration issues,
you might find it helpful to use a SCSI utility application to determine what's
connected to your Mac, to mount those devices and to perform some minor
configuration miracles when necessary. Although you can use the Apple System
Profiler to check SCSI ID numbers, you’ll probably have more luck using SCSlProbe
(see Figure 23-3) to mount and control SCSI devices. You may also have luck with
hard drive utilities such as Drive Setup, Silverlining, and FWB Hard Drive Toolkit.
Figure 23-3: SCSlProbe, a freeware program
from Robert Polic, enables you to review,
test, mount and update SCSI configurations.
SCSlProbe allows you to see all the current SCSI ID assignments in your system and
both SCSI buses if you have two (click the small 0 or 1 in the top-left corner to change
buses). It also shows devices that are on the bus but not mounted. If a device doesn't
appear in the display, click the Update button to search for other devices (this works in
similar utilities, as well). If you'd like the device to then be mounted, you can select it
and click the mount button.
Remember, only drives, removable media, CD-ROM, DVD, and similar devices are
mounted. SCSI scanners, cameras, Ethernet adapters, and other devices usually aren't
mounted on the desktop.
One thing to remember, though, is that it’s not completely out of the realm of the
possible for these utilities to lie. The Mac can often convince these utilities that
everything is just fine, even if you purposely set out to confuse things (like setting
identical SCSI ID numbers for different devices). So, you’ll need to be diligent about
double-checking SCSI configuration. One trick is to make sure you’re turning your
Mac completely off, not restarting the Mac, before you expect it to recognize a new
ID assignment.
Cables, termination, and hardware
The key to troubleshooting SCSI is in isolating the problem. The best way to do that
is to remove all SCSI devices from the chain, and take each SCSI device, one at a
time, and attempt to add it to the Mac again. This can tell you not only which
Chapter 23 -f Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 611
devices are causing trouble, but whether or not the problem has something to do
with the cabling. The process may take a few minutes, but I promise it’s less tedious
and frustrating to do it this way at the outset.
If SCSI is causing consternation on your system, do the following:
1. Shut down the Mac. Detach all external SCSI devices.
2. Restart the Mac. Test your internal SCSI devices using SCSIProbe or a similar
software SCSI utility. Test by trying to reproduce the problem you were
having. Do any of the problems seem to occur as a result of having no external
SCSI devices installed? If you get any of the same symptoms, it’s possible that
something is wrong with the internal SCSI bus. Check it for proper
connections and termination.
3. Shut down the Macintosh. Reinstall one of the SCSI devices, giving it proper
termination.
4. Restart the Mac and test the new device. Check its status in SCSIProbe and
attempt to use the device directly. If you have trouble, you may have isolated
it to the cabling, a problem with your terminator, internal termination
problems, or the device itself.
5. Shut down the Macintosh. If the first device worked fine, add a second device
to it with the proper SCSI ID number, cabling, and termination (don’t forget to
remove the termination from the first device). If the first device didn’t work
correctly, remove it before installing the second device.
6. Restart the Mac and test. If everything continues to work, keep testing until
you’ve got a working SCSI chain up and running. If things don’t work, try to
isolate the device, cable, terminator, or combination that’s causing trouble.
When you do come across a device that isn’t working, it’s probably best to pull it
out of the chain and test the rest of the chain to ensure the problem you isolated is
the only problem you’re having. You can then troubleshoot that particular device.
If there’s nothing wrong with the device itself (it seems to boot up, spin, blink, and
all those sorts of things), it’s time to suspect a bit of SCSI voodoo. What you do next
is somewhat less than rational: You try everything. Specifically, add the device to
the chain (or test it on its own) and try these things:
^ Give the drive a different SCSI ID number than the one you’ve been trying. If
you have two SCSI buses, choose an ID number that’s not being used on either
of the buses. You should also try giving it a higher SCSI ID number, because
the SCSI bus gives higher numbers priority over lower numbers.
Try a new SCSI cable.
4- Try a new SCSI terminator.
*4 Put the problem device between two devices that aren’t giving you any
trouble. Install it with proper cabling and termination.
612 Part III 4* Troubleshoot and Repair
As a last ditch effort, try the following:
4- Zap PRAM.
4 Choose a different disk as the startup disk, even if that’s not really the
problem.
4- Unterminate the device, even if logic dictates that it should be terminated.
4 Try a different type of terminator, such as a pass-through terminator that
terminates the chain before it reaches the device.
Check Apple Tech Info Library (www.apple.com/support) for specific information
about your particular Mac system. You’ll find that in the Quadra and early Power
Macintosh series of Macs, Apple experimented a bit with different types of active ter-
mination and dual-bus configurations. These can get a bit mind-boggling, but a
search entry such as "Quadra 950, SCSI" or "4400, SCSI" should net you hits about
your particular machine (substitute your Mac’s model number).
Evangelista tips: SCSI voodoo
There's still a little oddity in the world of SCSI. For instance, Apple Tech Notes point out the
Quadra 950 has two SCSI buses, but only one set of SCSI IDs— numbers 0 through 6 (the
Mac is preassigned number 7). The Mac llfx is the oddest SCSI machine Apple ever
unleashed. Externally, it requires a different terminator (200 ohm instead of 100 ohm) from
any other Mac. Internally, some llfx machines have a SCSI filter that altered the capacitance
of the SCSI bus (later llfx models didn’t require this). Check out these other voodoo sub-
missions from Evangelistas:
" I have a (fairly specific) tip on installing the UMAX Astra 1200S scanner on Power Macs
with two SCSI buses: Make sure the SCSI ID of the scanner is unique on both the internal
and external SCSI buses, or the software won’t be able to recognize it" -Andy Hendrickson,
Mac Software Engineer (Note: an update to the software may have solved this problem
since this writing, but similar problems abound for older scanner and other SCSI device
drivers that assume Macs have one SCSI bus.)
’The termination rules are somewhat complicated on the 8100 (series). If you're using the
external SCSI port for drives or a CD, you must have the internal SCSI ribbon-cable termina-
tor installed. Because this was a new scheme for Apple with this series, some dealer techs
who install a new internal drive for you may not know the severity of removing the internal
terminator (as everything works fine in the shop without any external devices attached). I
believe they think the internal terminator is like your appendix. If you have trouble with any
and all of your external devices, check your Mac’s documentation for information on inter-
nal termination. If you've ever had your Mac in to a dealer, go back and ask for another
internal terminator. They'll have several in their parts box."— John Brassfield, Newcastle, CA
(continued)
chapter 23 4- Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 613
(continued)
"If you're having trouble with a device installed on the SCSI bus, it could well be a cable. I
have evaluated seven cables (25-pin SCSI to Centronics 50-pin) and only two of them work
properly! My test: Use the device, in my case a Jaz drive, as you normally would, and time
the different tasks with each cable installed. The worst cables have the slowest data trans-
fer rates and take the longest. Or they fail, with error messages." — Bob Patterson, Port St.
Lucie, FL
"One day I started up my PowerMac 6500/225 and the power came on, and then it just sat
there like a sack of potatoes. Several more attempts failed to produce a Happy Mac. Two
minutes of fretting and several expletives later, I started to unhook my external devices to
see if they were my problem. One by one, I started pulling items off the end of the SCSI
chain. Nothing. Then, like magic, my Mac restarted — after I had pulled the last device off. I
then spent another 20 to 30 minutes playing mix and match trying to find a combination or
even a singular SCSI device that worked. No joy.
"Just for giggles, I powered down my Mac (grounded myselO and popped the logic board
out of the back of the case to see if anything was burnt or broken. I located the SCSI con-
nector and followed the traces back to the controller chip. As I did so, I noticed a small,
golden, metallic flake laying across two traces, just back from where the connector was sol-
dered to the motherboard. 'There is no way that this is going to work,' I thought, 'but I'm
going to do it anyway.' Out came the can of compressed air. I blew off the flake, and then
proceeded to clean off the rest of the motherboard. Even after only six months of use, the
fan and CPU were covered with a layer of gunk. I pushed the motherboard back into its
socket, reconnected the SCSI chain in its original configuration, and then hit the power but-
ton and waited for the Happy Mac to show his mug. Sure enough, all was right with the
world once again. One dinky metal flake had caused all my grief." -Eric Wesselman,
Vancouver, WA
"Macs seem to like consistency. Try to always set your internal CD-ROM drive to SCSI ID 3,
your scanner to SCSI ID 5, and your external hard drive (or removable media drive) to SCSI
ID 2 or 4. These are what the Apple-brand devices are generally preset to."— Peter Trzcinski
All About Disk Drives
For the most part, this section discusses the behind-the-scenes, low-level functions
that govern the birth, daily life, and rebirth of hard drive mechanisms — although a
lot of this applies to removable media as well. If you ever find yourself in a situation
where you need to (or want to) start over with a new lease on your Mac (at least, as
far as software goes) you can reformat your hard drive and start over with clean
magnetic plates on which to stream your bits of data.
614 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
As mentioned earlier, the Mac world is divided into different camps when it comes
to the tool you’ll use for managing your hard drive. With an Apple-branded hard
drive, you’ll use Drive Setup, if you have a Power Macintosh or a 68040-based
Performa (or LC equivalent) with an IDE hard drive. Other Macs use the HD SC
Setup utility in some cases.
If you have a third-party drive, you likely use one of two programs. FWB’s Hard
Drive Toolkit is a popular alternative, as is Silverlining, the driver software for
LaCie-manufactured drives, shown in Figure 234. (LaCie makes drives that are often
OEMed by other computer companies, and then packaged in their own branded
external-drive enclosure. Apple has even OEMed some of these external drives in
the past.)
Figure 23-4: Silverlining is hard disk driver and management software for LaCie-
manufactured drives.
Chapter 23 Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 615
Whichever you have, you may at some point need to use it to change settings,
update a driver, or even format the drive. One of the tricks to doing this
successfully is using the most recent version you can get your hands on when it
comes time to do an upgrade or troubleshoot. The other thing that’s important is
not to use the wrong utility on the wrong drive.
Drivers and mounting
You’ve already seen in this chapter that updating the hard disk driver software is
one way to fix problems with blinking “?” icons, freezes on startup, and other
niggling problems. In fact, updating that hard disk driver is so encouraged by
Apple that the company has rolled driver updating into the automated installation
process for Mac OS system software. Although you can still choose not to update
the drive, by default Apple will install a new driver for Apple-branded drives if one
exists.
So, you should occasionally stop by the Web sites of your hard drive
manufacturer(s) and see if they’ve come out with any add-ons or updates to your
hard disk management software and/or hard disk driver software. If they have,
download the patch and apply the changes. (Actually, you don’t have to do this if
nothing seems particularly wrong. Read the Read Me file or release notes that come
with the update to see what exactly it fixes.)
In most cases, updating the driver is simply a matter of loading the hard disk
management software, and then invoking the Update Driver command, as in
Figure 23-5. This updates the small piece of software that loads as the Mac OS first
starts up, telling the Mac how to access the drive. This driver can conceivably
get corrupted (especially if a power surge or sudden crash brings the Mac down
at a moment when the hard drive is working), resulting in blinking Sad Mac
icon errors.
You can also often use the hard drive management software to mount drives not
currently on the desktop. A drive may not be mounted yet because there’s a
problem with it, it started up slowly as the Mac began its startup process, or it was
turned on after the Mac had already polled the SCSI chain for hard drives. Whatever
the reason, you can use the drive-management software to highlight the drive (you
may need to invoke an Update command to get it to find the unmounted drive) and
choose the Mount command or button.
The driver management software will often have other settings and utilities,
including settings to change cache characteristics (whether or not the hard drive
uses a built-in scheme to cache data in high-speed RAM to speed up operations),
power down at a certain time, or even change the SCSI ID number in software.
616 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Figure 23-5: Your hard disk management software — or a recent update to the original
software -should offer an Update Driver command.
Testing
Your driver management software will give you some other options, too. These can
be useful in the troubleshooting process, although you need to be careful when
you’re dealing with these aspects of your hard drive management software; you
usually only get asked twice if you really want to format your drive. Formatting a
drive, partitioning a drive, and performing certain low-level integrity tests will
destroy the data on the drive.
If you can, back up your drive before performing any sort of hard drive tests, format-
ting, or partitioning. Even if the test says it will maintain your data, a recent backup is
advisable. Such tests are an inopportune time for a crash, bug or power surge. (And
the occurrence of such a hiccup is dictated by Murphy's Law.)
Formatting a drive should not be an early consideration in the troubleshooting
process. Generally, your hard drive and Mac OS are not so completely mixed up
that formatting the drive is necessary. And, in the off chance that you have a low-
level virus on your hard drive, sometimes formatting won’t eradicate it. (See
Chapters 30 and 31 for more on viruses.)
^Chapter 23 -f Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 617
If you do suspect that the hard drive has physical imperfections or other problems
(perhaps excessive heat has been a problem or there seem to be a high number of
read/write errors), it’s possible that a low-level test will help you determine the
condition of your drive. Explore the options in your drive-management software.
Some tests are simply read/write tests that can tell you if the drive needs alignment
or similar services. Others test the integrity of the actual media.
If you have gotten to the point where you’d prefer to reformat your drive, you
should also think carefully about the ways you’d like it formatted and partitioned.
See the section “Formatting and partitioning” later in this chapter for more on
formatting and partitioning a drive.
Removable media
Removable media drives can be a special case. In general, they’re a lot like hard
drives in that they have their own driver software (usually in the form of an
Extension in your System Folder) and they mount if present when the Mac OS is
starting up. They also mount when inserted, though, tapping into the Mac ability
to do this on the fly (the same way floppy disks do).
Special drivers
What’s different about a lot of removable media is they tend to include the driver
software for their operation on the media itself. This usually works okay, allowing
the disk to mount on its own or, in a crunch, allowing it to be mounted by a tool
such as SCSlProbe or the removable drive’s own management software. A conflict
can occur, however, when the two drivers aren’t the same version or offer some
incompatibility. Usually, things are fine if the drive in the System Folder is newer
than the media’s driver, but the opposite isn’t always true.
In this case, the best rule is to probably go ahead and update whichever version of
the drive is older — the one in the System Folder or the one on the media. You may
need to download an update for your removable drive’s management software, but
once you do that, updating the media and/or the extension should be no trouble.
If you use an Iomega Zip or Jaz drive, you may encounter a similar problem; if the
Mac OS starts up while a cartridge is in the drive, the Mac will use the cartridge’s
driver instead of the driver in the System Folder. If this driver is older, it can
interfere with the operation of different cartridges that might be formatted to work
with a newer driver. The best solution to this dilemma is to update the drivers on
all your Zip/Jaz or similar cartridges — especially if you’re the sort of admirable,
well-organized person who could pull off something like that.
My solution is to simply eject Zip and Jaz cartridges whenever I’m not using the
drive so the cartridge isn’t in there to foul things up in the first place. (This
system has the added benefit of not slowing down your Mac by spinning the drive
at odd intervals as the Mac OS is wont to do if a cartridge is mounted.) Some older
removable media drives like to be inserted when the Mac starts up, though, so
you’ll need to experiment with your own to see which is best.
618 Part III 4* Troubleshoot and Repair
You can often set a rennovable drive to automatically eject its media at shut down-
or not -through its control panel (see next section).
Other removable media issues
Some removable media devices will include a control panel through which you can
change certain settings relating to the drive and its performance. These settings
can include behaviors — such as ejecting at shutdown — or dictate when some
activity should occur — such as when the drive should lower its power
consumption (see Figure 23-6).
Figure 23-6: The Iomega Drive Options
management control panel
Although removable media drives can often be formatted using the Mac’s Special O
Erase Disk command, you may have better luck with any utilities that are included
with the drive. In general, these utilities will augment the capabilities of a typical
Mac format, including options such as formats that also verify the integrity of the
media.
Note
You may also be able to format removable media in the Macintosh Extended Format
(HFS Plus), which may enable you to store more on a given cartridge. Remember,
though, that using HFS Plus will make the cartridge incompatible with any other Macs
running Mac OS 8.0 or lower (HFS Plus was introduced in Mac OS 8.1).
In Mac OS 8.1, PC Exchange was updated to more readily recognize and mount DOS-
formatted media in many removable media drives. (It also supports long Windows
95 file name conventions in PC Exchange 2.2.)
If you have trouble with this feature, though (or if you have an earlier version), one
way to get PC-formatted media to work with your drive is to head over to the PC
Exchange control panel before you insert the DOS-formatted media. Choose the
Options button and click the removable drive once. Click OK and PC Exchange will
keep the DOS-formatted drive from loading its own driver so that it doesn’t cause
trouble with the Mac OS.
chapter 23 4 - Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 619
Formatting and partitioning
To be used with a Macintosh, a hard drive needs to have a low-level format that
governs how files are saved and tracked on the drive. In most cases, you’ll want to
do this using a native Macintosh format, although the Mac is certainly capable of
dealing with drives in other formats, including DOS and Apple IFs ProDOS. And, you
can always run a different operating system on your Mac, such as Linux, BeOS or
other UNIX variants, which may also require a different hard drive format.
For the Mac OS, though, your main drive will need to be formatted in a native Mac
OS format — that’s either the Mac OS Standard format (known as Hierarchical File
System or HFS) or the Mac OS Extended format (known as HFS Plus). Doing this at
its most basic is simple: Use the Special O Erase Disk command to reformat an
existing hard disk or removable media cartridge. This erases all previous
information from the disk, giving you a chance to start over.
Formatting a hard disk or large removable disk is usually a more arduous process,
however. If you’ve already been using the disk, you’ll likely want to back up the data
on that disk before reformatting, because a reformat causes all data on the drive to
be almost irretrievably lost. You’ll also need to decide what formatting scheme you
want to use and whether or not you want to partition the drive.
HFS and HFS Plus
The HFS Plus format was introduced with Mac OS 8.1, providing some newer, more
modern features and extending the capabilities of the Mac OS when dealing with
files. It’s also not backwards compatible, so you must be running Mac OS 8.1 or
greater to use HFS Plus.
HFS Plus improves on some of the limitations of HFS, including a limit to the
number of storage elements that HFS can track, a change in the naming scheme for
files (HFS Plus builds on the Unicode scheme that allows for longer filenames), and
the number of files that can be stored on a hard drive at any particular moment.
The biggest problem with HFS is that regardless of the hard drive’s size, it is limited
to a total of 65,536 storage elements that could be tracked at one time. The file
system creates allocation blocks based on this number, so the entire drive is divided
into equal allocation blocks that are then used for storing files. The problem is the
larger the drive, the larger the minimum allocation block, which means that any file,
no matter how small, fills that allocation block. Even if the file is one letter saved in
a SimpleText document, it will take the entire allocation block.
In fact, you can calculate this effect. Here’s how:
620 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
1. Because there are 2,000 logical blocks (512K blocks) in 1MB of space, you
multiply the size of the drive in megabytes by 2,000.
2. Divide that number by 65,536 — the maximum number of allocation blocks
under HFS.
3. Round this number up to a whole number and multiply it by 512. The result is
the amount of space (in bytes) in each allocation block.
Take, for example, a 2GB (2,048MB) hard drive:
2048 X 2000 / 65536 = 62.5 (rounded to) 63 x 512 = 32,256 (bytes) - 32K
So, the minimum allocation block on a 2GB hard drive is 32K. That means any small
file requires 32K for storing; it also means that any larger file that spills over into a
new allocation block takes up that whole 32K block, even if only to store one more
kilobyte of data.
Prior to HFS Plus, the best way to deal with this issue was to partition your hard
drives so that you were working with more, but smaller, virtual drives (called
volumes). When a partition was created, HFS was capable of assigning a whole new
set of allocation block numbers for tracking files on that partition. So, making the
allocation block sizes on the whole drive (now divided into two or more volumes)
smaller wasted less space, and this usually led to users dividing larger hard drives
into three, four, or more volumes to get optimum storage capabilities.
HFS Plus circumvents this problem by assigning very specific allocation block sizes
instead of allowing them to grow according to size. (This is accomplished by using
much more than 65,000 block numbers.) HFS Plus assigns allocation block sizes as
shown in Table 23-1.
Table 23-1
HFS Plus Allocation Block Sizes
Volume Size
Default Allocation Block
256MB or smaller
512 bytes
256-5 12MB
1024 bytes
512-lGB
2048 bytes
Over 1GB
4096 bytes
So, the maximum allocation block is 4K on larger hard drives, a number that strikes
a balance between file size and performance. (Moving around a bunch of 512 byte
blocks on a larger drive could cause a performance bottleneck, so a compromise is
in order.)
chapter 23 Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 621
The other advantages of HFS Plus (such as longer filenames) weren't yet imple-
mented in Mac OS 8.1, and are likely intended to make an appearance in Mac OS X.
At the time of writing, the main benefit is an increase in the number of files allowed
on a hard drive and the additional space gained by using smaller allocation blocks.
Should you choose HFS Plus?
Although the possibilities of HFS Plus are certainly enticing, there are a few reasons
to avoid using it. Aside from it’s being a reasonably new technology (which means it
lacks support or some major utilities, may not work with every application or file,
and could have bugs or cause conflict), HFS Plus is also not backward compatible.
That means there are some instances when you won’t be able to use it. For
instance, no Mac running Mac OS 8.0 or earlier can see an HFS Plus volume. The
Mac must be running at least Mac OS 8.1 to see the HFS Plus volume. If you try to
view an HFS Plus volume with an older version of the Mac OS, a single file called
“Where_have_alLmy_files_gone” appears on the desktop, explaining that the
current machine can’t view an HFS Plus volume.
So, before deciding to upgrade to HFS Plus, you’ll need to consider all the different
ways that an older Mac might try to access your HFS Plus-enabled Mac:
^ Over a network. If your Mac is connected to a file sharing network, Macs using
Mac OS 8.0 or below won’t be able to access your drive.
> In SCSI Disk mode. If you connect an HFS Plus-formatted PowerBook to a Mac
that is using Mac OS 8.0 in SCSI Disk mode, the desktop Mac won’t be able to
read the file.
♦ On removable media. A removable media cartridge formatted with HFS Plus
will only work with Mac OS 8.1 or above.
The other thing you should consider before upgrading to HFS Plus is whether all
your major utilities and applications will move forward. You may need new versions
of your hard disk drivers and configuration software, new disk doctor programs,
and new versions of password protection programs (even the PowerBook Security
software needs to be updated), and some low-level control panels and/or
extensions may not work correctly. HFS Plus also can’t be used on any volume
smaller than 32MB, including floppy disks.
One possible solution: Partition your hard drive and format a smaller chunk (of a
few hundred megabytes, perhaps) in regular HFS. That will enable you to boot this
Mac from an older Mac OS startup floppy or CD-ROM version in a crunch, and then
you’ll be able to run a disk doctor utility on that partition to get it up and running.
You can format the rest of the drive (the remaining partition) in HFS Plus to get all
the benefits of the new file system.
622 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
If your Mac is reasonably isolated from older Macs and you won't be having much
trouble with your applications, you can either reformat the drive as an HFS Plus vol-
ume (after backing up all your data) or you can use a utility like Alsoffs
PlusMaximizer (www.Alsoft.com/) to switch to HFS Plus without reformatting.
Alsoft offers other utilities, too, for upgrading to HFS Plus.
Formatting
Whether you’ve decided to go with HFS Plus or not, you may be interested in
formatting your hard drive. It’s certainly a great way to optimize the hard drive,
especially after catastrophic system software problems, after cleaning off a virus, or
when you’ve simply decided that it’s time to start over with a fresh, clean drive. It’s
even the first step toward changing your drive’s partitioning scheme, in most cases.
Formatting is really quite easy. Just make sure you have a good backup of the data
on the drive, because formatting will destroy all data on the drive. Select the drive
in the Finder and choose Special Erase Disk from the menu bar. After choosing
the type of format you want (you may have no choice or a choice between Mac OS
Standard and Mac OS Extended — HFS Plus — formats) click OK when you’re asked
if you’re sure that you want to delete all the files on your drive.
Only click OK if you really are sure you want to delete all the files on the drive.
The Mac then takes over and formats the drive for you. When it relinquishes
control, you’ll have a clean, new drive In the format of your choice.
Of course, you can also choose to format a drive using a drive utility such as
Apple’s Drive Setup or third-party kits such as FWB Hard Disk Toolkit and
Silverlining. The advantage of these utilities is you can update the hard disk driver,
run certain tests and then partition the drive, if you’d like.
Don't forget to upgrade to the latest version of your hard disk management tool if you
use one. Silverlining is maintained at www. 1 acie.com/ and FWB Hard Disk Toolkit is
maintained at wv/w . f wb . com/.
Partitioning
As discussed earlier, there are a lot of reasons to format in HFS, instead of HFS Plus,
although you may cringe at losing some of the features you’d gel if you used the
Plus scheme. To get around one problem HFS has — the tendency for large drives to
eat up a lot of extra space when saving files — partition the drive.
Actually, both HFS and HFS Plus support partitioning of the drive into virtual drives,
so that a 4GB hard disk, for instance, would show up as two different hard disks In
the Finder, each of which could be 2GB in size. (Or, it could be four disks of 1GB
each, or any combination, such as one 3.5GB disk and one 512MB disk.) This can
simply be an issue of convenience; perhaps you’d like a separate drive icon for
storing your documents so that you can then easily back them up.
Chapter 23 ♦ Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 623
However, the limitation in HFS causes a lot of disk space waste on larger (1GB+)
drives. So, standard practice is to partition a large physical hard drive into
several smaller logical volumes, which can hold small files more efficiently if
you’re using HFS.
Most drive utilities will also allow you to partition the drive with a special
command (check the menu bar for partitioning tools). You’ll then be able to choose
the size for each partition, along with the type of file system you want put on that
drive. In some cases, a partitioning tool will only be able to work with Mac OS
Standard or Mac OS Extended formats; in other cases you can partition using
various UNIX file formats, Apple II, and other interesting choices.
The result after partitioning? You’ll have as many drive icons in the Finder as you
have Mac OS formatted volumes. (If you want to then format the partitions into
different file systems, you’re free to do that, too.)
A/lac Evangelista tip: Partition tuning
According to Mac Evangelista Gerald Wilson, there's more to partitioning an HFS drive than
just picking a smallish size. If you can make the allocation block size an exact binary
number (2-, 4-, 8-, or 16K), you'll get better performance from your drive volumes. Here's
the chart:
Allocation Block (K)
Min, Partition Size (K)
Max Partition Size (K)
1/2 (512 bytes)
0
32,767
1
32,768
65,535
2
98,304
131,071
4
229,376
262,143
8
491,520
524,287
16
1,015,808
1,048,575
So, choose a size with the partition size range to get the best allocation block size for opti-
mum performance. Says Gerald:
(continued)
624 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
(continued)
'7ou may need to experiment with your disk formatter to ensure you're hitting the correct
range. Remember: One byte over or under for the allocation block and the disk is untuned
and less efficient. Don't worry too much if you have an untuned disk that you can't easily
rebuild. The effect is minor (at most a 20 percent disk speed improvement) and won't ben-
efit all users or all applications. But if you've got a new disk which you need to partition,
why not tune the partition sizes as you go?"
"Users doing media work (audio, video) need to stream huge amounts of data to and from
disk. For them, a large extent size can be more efficient. If you're that sort of user, disk tun-
ing will still help, but you probably need to set up one physical volume as your system disk
with smallish partitions, and another volume as your A/V disk tuned to suit very large files."
Disk Fixing and File Recovery
I’ve mentioned that corruption can hit places like PRAM, the System file, and
other parts of the Mac OS. But corruption and other factors can affect your regular
files, causing trouble with your day-to-day work. The best way to keep this
from happening is to maintain your file system regularly using some of the
recommendations you’ll find in Chapter 31. In cases of emergency, however,
you’ll want to step up the fight.
Most of the time, you’ll follow a process of hard disk fixing and file recovery. If
you’re having a traumatic problem with the drive, you’ll start as outlined earlier in
this chapter — with Disk First Aid and Drive Setup. Once you’ve moved on from
those tools, your next step is to get a commercial troubleshooter and run it to get
things not just patched up, but back in full working order. In the Mac world, that
means one of two products: Symantec’s Norton Utilities (www . norton . com) or
Micromat’s TechTool Pro (www .mi cromat . com). Each offers tools to help you work
through disk and file recovery issues.
Norton Utilities
Norton Utilities feature a number of different tools for recovery, including the
Norton Disk Doctor, Volume Recover, and UnErase. These features enable you to
choose a particular hard drive in your Mac system, mount it if necessary, and then
perform a variety of tests on the files, directory structure, and the media. In many
cases, Norton can dig deep into the bits and bytes of a drive to recover items that
have been scrambled, deleted, or otherwise lost.
chapter 23 4 ^ Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery 625
Most of the fixing and recovery takes place in Norton Disk Doctor, which is a
generalized troubleshooting and repair tool for hard disks, removable media, and
floppy disks. If you are having any sort of problem that can’t be repaired by Disk
First Aid, you should run Norton Disk Doctor to check the drive in question. (Figure
23-7 shows Norton Disk Doctor.)
At the time of writing, Norton Utilities was still incompatible with the HFS Plus format
for hard drives. Versions before Norton Utilities 4.0 are not compatible with HFS Plus.
If you do accidentally use an older version of Norton Utilities with an HFS Plus vol-
ume, you can run Apple’s Disk First Aid 8.2 or higher to recover from some problems,
or try contacting Symantec’s customer service or visit their Web site (www. Syman-
tec . com/) for information on recovering from this problem.
Figure 23-7: Examining a disk that’s been causing
a bit of trouble recently
Disk Doctor really works a little like a physical doctor. It has the responsibility of
diagnosing the problem before it can fix anything on its own. For very complex
problems. Disk Doctor can call in “specialists.” Both Norton Unerase and Norton
Volume Recover work in conjunction with Disk Doctor to solve more specialized
problems.
So what does Disk Doctor look at? Here are the basics it cycles through to diagnose
the problems with your drive:
4 Initial checks. Disk Doctor begins by running tests that help it determine
what type of media it’s working with and how it tends to be used by the Mac.
4 Bad blocks. It then checks the media’s surface for damaged areas. Bad blocks
are usually mapped out by the disk’s directory so that data elements are not
written to those blocks. Accidentally writing to such blocks generates errors
and, occasionally, unrecoverable files.
626 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
’f Disk information. Verifies that the disk is structured the way it’s supposed to
be.
4* Directory contents. Checks and verifies that the disk’s directory Is structured
logically and the directory’s records are in order.
> Missing files. Checks for files that are listed in the directory but are missing,
damaged, or cross-linked (two files sharing one block).
^ Analyzes files. Checks for files that aren’t following Mac conventions, and
finds those that might be conflicting with one another or with system
software.
One of the ways that Norton works is to ask you to run parts of it before any
trouble starts, allowing it to take inventory of your system and determine what’s
changed through problematic writes, corruption, or accidental deletes. Using a
program called FileSaver, Norton Utilities can track this information in the
background while it also constantly tests your drives whenever your Mac
encounters an idle period. This helps alert you to problems before they get out of
control.
If you have Norton Utilities, consider activating FileSaver if you haven’t already.
Figure 23-8 shows the FileSaver control panel.
Figure 23-8: The FileSaver control panel allows
Norton Utilities to constantly monitor your Mac.
TechTool Pro
Micromat made a big splash with their release of TechTool Pro 2, a product that
adds to the value of the original TechTool and TechTool Pro, offering a suite of
utilities that have a strong understanding of how Macs work. Even the freeware
TechTool program is indispensable to Mac owners, what with its intelligent
handling of basics such as zapping PRAM and rebuilding the desktop. TechTool
Pro 2 covers many more bases, including file and volume recovery, along with
support for HFS Plus.
Chapter 23 4 Storage Devices, SCSI, and File Recovery
TechTooI Pro started life as more of a diagnostic tool, providing users with
comprehensive access to information about the internals of their Macs — information
about the SCSI chain, ADB, serial ports, the CPU, audio inputs/outputs, and so on. In
my opinion, some of the information it can give is amazing (the manufacturer and
type of RAM installed in your Mac, for Instance.) If you intend to troubleshoot Macs
at almost any level — from beginner to hobbyist to professional — you’ll likely find
TechTooI Pro 2 of use to you, even if you prefer some of the tools in Norton Utilities
(see Figure 23-9).
Figure 23-9: TechTooI Pro features an amazing array of diagnostic
and repair tools for Mac troubleshooting.
In addition to those abilities, TechTooI Pro includes support for Mac OS 8.1 and
above and the HFS Plus file system format. TechTooI Pro 2 also now features file-
recovery tools such as the following:
4- Disk Structure Repair
♦ File Repair
^ File Recovery
♦ Volume Recovery
> Block Scan
Like Norton Utilities, TechTooI Pro 2 features the Protection control panel, which
monitors your system and saves information about it to aid in file and volume
recovery tasks in the future.
628 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
What if your drive is waterlogged, run over, or otherwise destroyed? You may still be
able to get data off the drive, but you'll need to call in the highest echelon of low-
level drive experts. Companies such as DriveSavers (www.drivesavers.com) spe-
cialize in dressing up in clean-room outfits, peeling apart the layers of physical hard
disks, and recovering data from their innards. I hear it's costly, but your data may be
worth more than a new car— or even the price of a new computer— to you.
Summary
•f Startup problems can be caused by a number of different hard disk-related
problems, including problems with the configuration of software, corruption
in parameter RAM, or trouble with the hard drive. You can troubleshoot these
successfully, but you’ll have to get the drive mounted on the desktop first.
> SCSI voodoo is a term affectionately given to the tendency of the SCSI bus to
succumb to odd problems that can be difficult to track down. Only a diligent
approach to SCSI troubleshooting will get you back up and running quickly.
4- Being able to work with your Mac’s hard drive at a lower level — the level of
driver software, formatting and manually mounting the drives — is important
for the skilled Mac troubleshooter. Knowing how all this works can even help
you make sense of some typical Mac problems. Additionally, at this level
removable drives will tend to throw some interesting twists your way.
4 If file or volume recovery is necessary, it’s time to call in a pro — Norton
Utilities or TechTool Pro. Either of these software Swiss army knives should
be able to help you recover data, programs, and anything else that’s been
affected by a catastrophic drive failure (as long as the drive still operates).
Input Devices
and Scanners
I t’s easy to let trouble with an input device fool you. The
Mac on which 1 spend most of my time is sitting on top of a
desk with one of those keyboard trays. (If you haven’t tried
one, you should consider it. Sitting with your elbows at 90-
degree angles and your wrists slightly above the keyboard can
be much more comfortable, and it may be better for you
ergonomically.) Because my Mac is a minitower design, the
keyboard ends up being quite a length away from the back of
the Mac, so 1 got a little cable extender.
1 must kick that thing out of its connector at least once a week.
Usually I’m typing or mousing at the time, and my mouse
pointer freezes immediately. After some words that probably
wouldn’t even pass the Fox censors, 1 usually figure out that
the keyboard is unhooked right after giving my Mac the three-
finger salute (Option-i6-Power reboots most Mac models after
a freeze, but not if the keyboard isn’t connected). It’s then that
I peer under the desk at the real culprit; my right foot.
Of course, this is probably the least problematic input issue
one could experience on a Mac. But the results can sure seem
dire if you don’t diagnose this one correctly. The same can be
said for most problems that affect your Mac’s input devices —
as the basic method for communication between you and your
Mac, a busted keyboard or problem mouse can cause not only
frustration but, as in my case, miscommunication.
So far, I haven't gotten much of a chance to play with USB
devices and check around for troubleshooting help, because,
at the time of writing, no one in the Mac world is yet using
USB devices, and little information is available on the state of
USB troubleshooting. It is a topic I intend to follow very
closely, however, as it should have far-reaching consequences
in the world of Mac upgrading. Check www.mac-
upgrade.com/ for special reports and tracking of USB Issues.
^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
ADB issues
Keyboards and mice
Scanner care
Troubleshooting SCSI
and serial scanners
4 ^ 4 ^ 4 ^ 4 ^
630 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
The ADB Bus
The Apple Desktop Bus is certainly a convenient and clever way for adding input
devices, especially with its no-hassle extensibility. But it has its limitations, as you
might expect from any computing technology that’s over 15 yecirs old.
What can go wrong with the ADB? Let’s lake a look at some of the possibilities:
4- Overloading. ADB can get overloaded with peripherals, all of which require a
bit of power from the bus to operate. Use up this power, and you can get
intermittent or completely unreliable feedback from ADB devices.
4 Overcabled. There’s a limit to how far an ADB chain can be extended before
errors creep in.
4 Shorts. ADB can (occasionally) experience an electrical short, especially if you
connect a bad cable.
4* Mistaken installation. The ADB port looks frighteningly similar to a number of
other ports on the back of a Macintosh, and it’s certainly possible to plug
cabling into the wrong one, causing all sorts of problems.
ADB by the numbers
If you’re concerned that you may have too many ADB devices hooked up to your
Mac, I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. You’ll have to figure it out for
yourself. Here’s the skinny on how much power can be drawn from the bus and
other significant statistics:
4^ The ADB bus can only handle about 500 milliamperes of power consumption.
Keyboards tend to consume 85 to 100 milliamperes. Other devices may
consume more or less. Be particularly wary of devices that use a pass-through
ADB connector to use the ADB port only for power — modems tend to do this,
as do some other devices.
4 Three to four simple devices is about all the ADB chain can handle. Any more
than that, and errors or poor response characteristics may creep in. Also, be
wary of complicated input devices — such as digitizing tablets — which may
limit you to two or three devices, tops.
4 Five meters is the limit to the length of a typical chain of ADB devices. If you
need to be further away from the Mac than that, you’ll want to look into
devices that boost the ADB signal, some of which are discussed in Chapter 10.
Individual cables of six feet or more can sometimes cause intermittent
problems.
Chapter 24 ♦ Input Devices and Scanners 631
Troubleshooting ADB
If you’re having trouble with your ADB connections or devices, you should take the
time to troubleshoot things carefully. It’s important to know if you have an ADB
device that’s failing or if the ADB chain itself is the problem. Generally, symptoms of
both types of failures can be quite similar.
The first thing to look at is the connection itself. Make sure you’ve got ADB cabling
hooked up to the ADB ports on the back of your Mac. Apple warns of a scenario in
which users with Macs that feature S-video ports will accidentally plug their ADB
chain into the S-video port. The S-video port is designed to accept 7-pin connectors,
but an ADB cable will fit in that port. However it’s certainly not a good idea to
actually plug the ADB into that port — at best, the device won’t work, and at worst
the device or port will be damaged.
Isolating an ADB problem generally means isolating each individual ADB device and
seeing if it works correctly with your Mac. You can then test for conflicts that arise
from using the devices together. If you think you’re experiencing a recurring error
that you might be able to reproduce, try this:
1. Shut down your Mac.
2. Unplug all the ADB devices you have connected to your Mac except the
keyboard and your mousing device.
3. Restart the Mac. Try to reproduce the error.
4. If you don’t get an error, shut the Mac back down.
5. If one of your other ADB devices is a mousing device (for example, a graphics
tablet), uninstall the mouse and plug the new device into the keyboard.
6. Restart and test for the error.
If you don’t get past the first step (keyboard and mouse together), it’s either your
mouse, your keyboard, or the ADB cable between your Mac and keyboard that is
causing the problem. You should plug the mouse directly into the ADB port, and
then restart the Mac. If you can mouse around and select things with no trouble,
shut down and try the keyboard and mouse combination, this time with a new ADB
keyboard connected to the mouse. The problem’s not with the keyboard’s cable, it
might be with the keyboard. Take the keyboard to a Mac service center and have it
looked at.
If your Mac passes the first test, continue to do this until you isolate the device that
caused the error. If none of your mousing devices seem to be having any troubles or
are causing a conflict, try adding all your ADB devices one by one, restarting every
time to check the new chain. If you don’t encounter any problems, you may have
fixed things just by switching them around a bit. If you do have problems, suspect
devices that use the ADB port only for power; remove those from the chain and see
if your other ADB devices don’t get along a bit better.
632 Part III 4- Troubleshoot and Repair
Expert tip: Could it be the cable?
It may not seem likely that an ADB cable could be bad, but it does happen. And, it can result
in some unexpected results. This tip comes Guido Korber, vice president for products of
Fesh!, a German manufacturer of ADB devices and Mac software:
'There is a nice trick [older, 68000-series] Macs play on you when there is a short circuit on
the ADB. If the Power-On and the Ground line of the ADB are shorted, the self-powering
models do not shut down. Instead, they put up the old 'You can now safely switch off your
Mac' message.
"Since Apple tests the motherboards completely, you will never find a problem there. But
you cannot rely on ADB device manufacturers testing the Power-On line if it is not used by
the device (for instance, a trackball doesn't use the Power-On line). We are manufacturing
ADB devices and we've had a few customers with the problem. It is solved by disconnect-
ing the offending device or cable."
other ADB advice
This tendency for ADB to get overwhelmed by devices and be a little sensitive to
cable lengths can result in some voodoo-like symptoms. Apple has offered, in
various Tech Notes, advice that doesn’t always necessarily make sense, but might
work if the logical approaches to troubleshooting ADB fail. Other experts have
contributed their two cents to this list as well.
You might notice some of these troubleshooting tips are familiar:
-f Restart your computet: Sometimes just clearing out RAM and starting again
fresh can help get rid of input device trouble.
4 Zap the PRAM. It may help, it may not.
4- Troubleshoot extensions. Specifically, check with the manufacturer of your
input device to see if it requires an extension or control-panel conflict and see
if there are any known conflicts. If not, consult Chapter 32 for information on
troubleshooting inside the System Folder.
4* Reinstall your driver software. You may also want to delete the preferences file
associated with your input device, if there is one. (Chapter 31 discusses the
Preferences folder.)
4^ Try a different or shorter ADB cable. You might also try configuring without
any ADB extension cable you might be using.
Chapter 24 4- Input Devices and Scanners 633
Keyboards and Mice
Over time, mice and keyboards can wear out, and they certainly deserve proper
maintenance — but you’re probably going to ruin them long before their natural
lifespan has run its course. It seems to be a fact of life that, eventually, somebody is
going to drench the keyboard in a sticky, sweet liquid or gooey substance. (If you
have children, at least you can blame it on them.)
Take a quick look at what you can do to bring keyboards and mice back from the
“great beyond” in times of crisis. Actually, keyboards and mice can pretty much just
be cleaned; there aren’t many other repairs or fixes to concern yourself with in this
case (unless you accidentally set the keyboard to a foreign language keyset, as
described back in Chapter 10). If you’re noticing erratic behavior that you can’t
very well attribute to an ADB problem, you might just need to clean your input
devices up a little and make them presentable.
Mac expert tip: The doorbell syndrome
Don Miller of 5-Minute Mac Consulting in Pittsburg, PA, has coined the phrase "doorbell
syndrome," which he says is his name for problems that are generated when a user hits the
mouse button over and over again. In his experience, the occasional client will click a
mouse (or trackball) button, see nothing happen on the screen, and then respond by click-
ing the mouse button much harder. This is rarely helpful, but it does tend to damage input
devices. (Don mentioned that "elevator button syndrome" would be an equally applicable
name.) Here's his story:
"One day, I was called to a client's office to fix a Mac that had the flashing disk icon at
startup. I tried every disk trick I know, but nothing helped. Even my portable hard drive,
loaded with universal system software and repair utilities, failed to get rid of the flashing
disk icon. The Mac obviously was not finding a boot drive anywhere. Even a bootable disk
was refused. But nothing appeared to be wrong.
"Then I took the opposite approach by asking myself, 'What could I do to prevent a Mac
from recognizing the startup drive?' Well, if you hold down the mouse button you can make
the Mac bypass the internal drive at startup, I thought.
"Sure enough, after disconnecting the mouse (actually, my client used a trackball) the Mac
started perfectly. The problem, as I discovered later, was one too many hits on the mouse
button. It was broken and permanently 'pressed.' As a result, the Mac was made to refuse
any startup drive."
634 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Mice
Your mouse will probably let you know when it needs to be cleaned or looked at. If
you’re using a smooth, firm surface as a mouse pad, but experiencing less-than-
ideal mouse behavior, it’s probably time for a cleaning.
To clean your Mac’s mouse:
1, Shut down the Mac, unplug the mouse, and turn it over.
2. The mouse ball is sealed inside the bottom of the mouse behind a dial that
you can turn to remove. You’ll generally turn an Apple mouse’s dial
counterclockwise to loosen it, as shown in Figure 24-1. (If you have trouble
using your fingers, fit a pen, key, or small screwdriver in the open slot and
push the dial so that it turns counterclockwise. The plastic is very soft,
though, and will probably scar from the experience.)
Figure 24-1: Turn the dial on the mouse counter-clockwise to open it.
3. Turn the mouse back over and roll the mouse ball into your hand. Rinse the
ball with soap and water to clean the ball, and then set it aside until it dries
completely.
4. Using a cotton swap and some rubbing alcohol, clean the wire rollers inside
the mouse, again waiting until it dries completely.
5. Place the ball back in the mouse and replace the dial, turning it clockwise
until it locks.
Chapter 24 -f Input Devices and Scanners 635
Note
Note
The mouse isn’t the only thing you may need to clean. If your mouse continues to
act erratic or becomes dirty again very quickly, you may need to examine your
mousepad. If your mousepad has been treated in any way like the pads in my
office generally are, it may be due for a scrubbing, too. Many of them can be
cleaned with soap and water under the faucet, as long as you’re very careful to
dry the pad completely — perhaps overnight in a dish rack or all day in the sun.
Needless to say, you should replace your mousepad occasionally, and clean it
immediately after something is spilled on it. Don’t drag your mouse over a wet,
sticky, or otherwise compromised mousepad. Also, it isn’t a good idea to substitute
newspaper, printer paper, mystery novels, or anything else for a mousepad,
because paper fibers and other little bits can build up inside the mouse. Get a good
quality mousepad, and then give yourself another one every birthday or so.
If you continue to have trouble with your mouse, examine the rollers on the inside of
the mouse very carefully. Sometimes hair, fabric fibers, or something else can jam the
little rollers, causing them to stop rolling. Tweezers or a toothpick may help you get
the offending item away from the roller. Be careful, though. If you bend the wire that
attaches to the roller, you’ve probably ruined the mouse.
Your mouse trouble could also be caused by software, especially if you’re
experiencing something like a mouse pointer that seems to have a mind of its
own: The pointer jumps around, it slides across the screen on its own, or
something similar. Usually, this is a conflict — probably between similar control
panels. If you have an errant mouse pointer, make sure its control panel is properly
configured (if it has its own special control panel). You should also check the
control panels for your joysticks, trackballs, control pads, or anything else you
might have on your system.
Also, make sure you’re not leaning on one of the buttons or using the controller
incorrectly. Some people have trouble adjusting to a graphics pad or touchpad
(such as those on newer Powerbooks) where tapping different parts of the pad may
suddenly move the cursor. If you’re accidentally touching a touchpad in two places,
you may be contributing to the mouse pointer’s erratic behavior.
If your mouse or trackball is a Kensington model that uses the popular MouseWorks
software, you may find its necessary to set some of its hidden options, including a
few to keep your trackball from interfering with other ADB devices. To get to these
hidden commands, hold down the Option key while accessing the Option •:>
Compatibility Options command in the menu bar. The most likely reason to access
these options is if your Kensington product is interfering with another ADB device by
trying to use the same ADB ID number.
636 Part III ■¥ Troubleshoot and Repair
Trackballs
Trackballs can often be cleaned the exact same way as mice — at least, internally.
You can swab the rollers with cotton swaps and rubbing alcohol. For the ball, you
can use tap water and, if necessary, a mild detergent. Dry the ball completely with a
lint-free towel. You might want to wait a while before plugging everything back in to
allow the parts to air dry further.
Kensington (www.kensington.com/), popular manufacturer of ADB peripherals,
has an entire line of cleaning supplies— cleaning wipes, lint-free cloths -for mice and
trackballs. They may be overkill, but perhaps they're a decent idea for an office envi-
ronment or as small gifts to computing enthusiasts.
If you have trouble getting a ball out of trackball housing, turn it over (with your
hand under it to catch the ball). If it doesn’t fall out, look for a release button on the
bottom of the housing.
Graphics tablets
Graphics tablets are slightly odd creatures, if only for the amount of data they can
generate for a basic input device. That can make them problematic as ADB devices,
because they need to be “good citizens,” especially if you’re using the tablet along
with a mouse, keyboard, and any other ADB devices. Usually, graphics tablets scale
back their capabilities a little bit so that they only work as quickly as the Mac can
handle, but this can sometimes result in stalls or short changeovers when you
move between a graphics tablet and a mouse. If you experience a short wait, don’t
immediately assume your Mac has crashed or frozen. Instead, wait a moment to see
if the mouse or keyboard was just trying to catch up with the tablet.
If staggered input or short lock-ups happen repeatedly, troubleshoot by removing
the tablet and testing to see if the problem recurs. If it doesn’t, you might try using
the graphics tablet as your only mouse-like input device, and get a couple of the
other ones off the ADB bus.
Because the graphics tablet does have to coexist on these buses, it’s important to
keep its driver up-to-date. Check the manufacturer’s Web site for updated drivers,
especially if you’re having trouble after a Mac OS upgrade.
Because most graphics tablets require a control panel and/or extension, you can
expect trouble with these if you’re having trouble getting the tablet to work or if
your Mac freezes or crashes when using the tablet. Wacom lists some known issues
on its Web site (www .Wacom . com), including problems with some files included with
Apple Remote Access (for ADB tablets) and conflicts with Global Village software
and other fax programs (for serial tablets). A number of problems can crop up if
you’re trying to share a serial port between a tablet and a modem, because the
modem’s software will sometimes keep the tablet from working correctly. In
general, if a serial tablet is being shared on a modem port, the other device’s
drivers need to be completely disabled before you can switch to the tablet.
chapter 24 ^ Input Devices and Scanners 637
Some early graphics tablets may not work correctly when plugged into GeoPort-
style serial ports on Power Macintosh machines (CalComp makes a point of this on
their site — www. cal comp . com). If you have trouble with a graphics tablet not
enabling you to cover the entire screen, the problem may be with the preferences
file for the tablet becoming corrupt (assuming you haven’t very recently changed
the resolution of your Mac’s screen — if that’s the case, restart your Mac). If you
suspect the preferences file, remove it from the Preferences folder and restart your
Mac to see if the tablet begins to behave.
Keyboards
If your keyboard has received a bad spill, you probably shouldn’t spend forever
trying to clean it. It can be very difficult to get a Mac’s keyboard back in working
order, especially because there are certainly some powered electronics inside a
typical Mac keyboard. That said, keyboards tend to cost between $30 and $150
dollars, so it might be worth a little effort before you throw in the towel (so to
speak) and buy a new keyboard.
To clean a keyboard spill:
1. Shut down the Mac and unplug the keyboard.
2. Dry the outside of the keyboard with a dry towel or sponge. If you spilled a
sticky liquid, use a damp rag to clean as much of the exterior as you can.
3. Turn your keyboard upside down and shake it to remove any excess liquid.
You can also use compressed air to blow liquid out from between the keys.
4. If you need to, unscrew the small screws from the back of the keyboard and
remove the back plastic. You might be able to coerce more liquid out of the
keyboard and clean some parts, but avoid touching the circuit board. Even a
slight static discharge can kill the keyboard.
5. If you have a hair dryer, you might use it to dry the keyboard, especially if you
spilled water or another non-sticky drink.
6. Let the keyboard dry for at least a day. Then plug it in, turn on your Mac, and
test it.
If keys are sticking you may need to take the keyboard apart to clean it effectively.
(Try compressed air first, but don’t get too close to components with compressed
air, which tends to be cold and can cause condensation. Not that that’s the worst of
your problems right now.) You can remove the keys from most keyboards, but only
with a keycap removal tool from a specialty computer store. (I’ve also heard of
people building their own keycap removal tools, as in the sidebar, but do so at your
own risk.) Remove only the keys you need to clean under and don’t try for the
spacebar. Also, don’t forget the order of the keys on the keyboard. Seriously. This
one happens all the time. Heck, 1 sure couldn’t close my eyes and tell you the order
of every single one of the keys on a QWERTY layout.
638 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
A keyboard can survive a regular (annual or so) cleaning if you have the desire to
do it. Shut down the Mac and unplug the keyboard, and then gently wipe the keys
with a nearly dry rag (a little rubbing alcohol may help). Use compressed air or —
better yet a small computing vaccum cleaner — to clean between the keys.
Mac Evangelista tip: Keyboard CPR
If your keyboard is on its last legs and your only other option is buying a new one, maybe
you can kill an hour or so trying to fix it. First, think how proud you'll be of yourself if it
works. And, even more importantly, think how proud you'll be of yourself if you actually get
all the keys put back in the right order!
Rich Barron, Macknowledgist to the Stars, is back with more time-grabbing tips on getting
the most out of a keyboard that's already on its last legs. If you've got sticky keys on an
aging keyboard, you need to clean and lubricate the keys somehow. Here's how:
"I'm sure that someone sells a gadget for pulling the caps (that's what the letters are called)
off of a keyboard switch, but my personal favorite is just to use two paper clips. Shut down
your Mac and unplug the keyboard and move it to a good place to work. Take the rounded
end of the paper clip and push it down between the bad cap and one of its neighbors, then
slide it so that the rounded portion of the paper clip is under a corner of the bad cap. Now
take the other paper clip and do the same for the opposite corner of the same bad cap.
Take one paper clip in each hand (hold the keyboard down with your third hand) and lift
straight up! Don't rotate your hands or go at an angle or you may snap the little stem that
connects the keycap to the keyswitch underneath.
'7ou might want to wipe some of that grime out of there now that you have access to it
before you lubricate the key switch. Compressed air works, as does a dry cloth or paper
towel. Try not to touch any metal contacts or leads when the keyboard is open -there is a
computer chip under the spacebar that could get zapped from a little bit of static electricity,
so be careful.
'Take a spray lubricant (like WD-40) with an extension tube and spray a tiny amount of
lubricant into the area where the little plunger goes down into the keyswitch. Wipe up any
excess spray and then work the keyswitch up and down with your finger until you feel it
loosen up a little or stop sticking down. It should happen fairly soon (20 to 40 presses),
otherwise give it another slight spray with the lubricant
"When you are done and satisfied with your work, just press the key caps straight down
onto the keyswitch until it clicks into place. Make sure you get them in the right order, or
you'll have to pull them off again."
chapter 24 4 - Input Devices and Scanners 639
Scanner Troubleshooting
A lot of scanner trouble is really SCSI trouble; getting some scanners up and
running on the SCSI bus can be the biggest pain you ever have with the scanner.
And what’s most difficult about scanner SCSI problems is thcit they don’t always act
the way you’d expect a SCSI problem to act, because scanners (unlike hard drives
and removable media) don’t get mounted on the desktop. Generally, you have to go
looking a little harder.
The other major problem you’ll encounter is the scanner software. Scanner
software is not all made the same, and some of it can be cobbled together hurriedly
so that the scanner gets out the door quickly. This is especially true of some
scanners that might, in the interest of economy, be offered for both Windows and
Macintosh users. In this case the driver software can sometimes suffer. Bad driver
software can lead to crashes, freezes, or other bizarre behavior (like missing
scanners) that can frustrate you to no end.
First, though, you’ll probably find it’s a good idea to clean and care for your
scanner on a fairly regular basis to ensure the most crisp, clean scans you can get.
And there are a couple things you should consider if you’re packing and unpacking
the scanner — before you first take the scanner out of the box.
Installing and cleaning
You should follow the instructions very carefully when it comes to unpacking and
installing a scanner. In some cases, it’s possible to ruin a scanner if you simply rip it
out of the box, set it up, and turn it on.
A shipped scanner is often locked in some way such that the scanner head can’t
move around during the shipping process. It could be locked using a setting, a
lever, a pin, or a few other items. If your scanner is likely to suffer from the
following, warnings will probably be plastered all over the scanner, so take notice
of them. The point is, because the locking mechanism is designed to keep the
scanner head from moving, it’s a very bad idea to leave it installed when you start
up the scanner and try to use it. That moves the scan head mechanically, which
could cause damage depending on the scanner and the method used to lock
the scan head.
You may also find that you need to clean the glass scanning bed occasionally to get
the best scanning results. This is especially true if you’re beginning to see small
smudges or dots appear in your scans that can’t readily be explained otherwise.
640 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
To clean the scanner’s glass, use a damp, soft cloth and wipe the surface of the bed.
Don’t use spray cleaning solutions (or plain water) directly on the glass, because
the force of the spray can cause the liquid to enter the scanner through gaps at the
edges of the glass. If you prefer, prepackaged wipes and towels recommended for
cleaning scanners can be found in most computer stores.
You may also find that dust accumulates inside the scanner on the underside of the
glass. You can remove the glass to clean it, but try to do so only according to the
manufacturer’s instructions. Cleaning the inside may void your warranty. Plus,
cracking or breaking the scanner’s glass can result in expensive repairs that require
you to ship the scanner back to the manufacturer.
Configuration
Scanners and SCSI configuration can be a little tricky, and often more of a pain than
setting up SCSI storage devices, for two reasons: First, you’re reliant on tools such
as the freeware program SCSlProbe to tell you a scanner is detected and connected;
scanners don’t mount on the Mac’s desktop, so there’s one less indicator that
everything is humming along. Second, you’re reliant on the software that comes
with your scanner. Although it may be possible that you can use other driver
software and software for scanning, if the scanner is giving you trouble, the
software won’t always make things simple to troubleshoot.
SCSI issues
Scanner troubleshooting starts out, though, with observation and testing steps that
are like any other SCSI issues. Your first goal in troubleshooting any scanner issue is
getting the scanner to appear in SCSlProbe or a similar SCSI management program.
If you don’t see it there, you’re not going to be able to get your scanning software to
recognize it. So, start with checking recognition — fire up a SCSI probe program and
see if the scanner is there (see Figure 24-2).
g~
B
, SCSlProbe
Figure 24-2: SCSlProbe recognizes my
scanner, along with other SCSI devices.
Chapter 24 -f Input Devices and Scanners 04- 1
If you can’t seem to get your Mac to recognize the scanner, it could be due to a
number of problems:
> Power and cabling. Make sure the scanner is plugged in and turned on, and
all its cables are securely connected within the SCSI chain. Take special notice
of the SCSI cabling: Some scanners may use a pass-through SCSI terminator
that seems counterintuitive, for instance. Other scanners (such as the Apple
OneScanner 600/27) don’t require external termination. If your scanner didn’t
come with a terminator, or if you suspect a termination issue, consult your
scanner’s manual for details. You may have a scanner that needs to be turned
on (and completely warmed up) before you start up your Mac. Otherwise, the
scanner may not be properly set up on the SCSI bus, necessitating a restart of
the Mac before it can be used.
> SCSI ID. Make sure the SCSI ID number is unique on your SCSI chain and that
it was assigned correctly to the scanner at startup. You should be able the
check that this is a SCSI management program; most of the time scanners are
easily recognized by SCSIProbe. Don’t forget that some scanners are
particularly susceptible to problems on Macs with two SCSI buses, Choose an
ID that is free on both SCSI buses if you’re having a problem.
> SCSI issues. Test carefully to make sure there aren’t any other SCSI
annoyances on your SCSI bus, even if SCSIProbe does recognize the scanner.
Specifically, look for termination issues, other SCSI devices that aren’t
appearing, or any potential SCSI ID conflicts.
4“ Software. Check your scanner’s manual to make sure you’re installing all the
required software. In some cases this may include a System extension or
control panel. For other scanners, there may be nothing more than a
Photoshop plug-in and a physical SCSI setting that’s required.
If you can’t identify your problem as fitting one of these basic categories, or if
the problem feels like SCSI voodoo, you should try some of the more basic SCSI
troubleshooting methods, including restarting your Mac, reinstalling the scanner’s
software, trying a different SCSI cable, and zapping PRAM.
If all else fails, remove all devices from the SCSI chain and test them individually,
starting with the scanner. If you identify a conflict (or if every other device but the
scanner appears on the SCSI bus and can be configured), then you can approach
the vendor’s customer support personnel or a local computer shop with a general
idea of the problem.
Specific problems have been reported with some scanners and Macs that include
internal IDE drives, most of which have been addressed by Mac OS updates. If you
feel this may be part of your problem (for instance, your Mac freezes when a scanner
is attached and you happen to know your Mac has an IDE drive), check Apple's Tech
Info Library for specifics on the related issues and upgrades available.
642 Part 1114^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Scanner software
Once you’re able to move suspicion beyond the SCSI chain, you’ll want to take a
troubleshooting look at the software that runs your scanner. You may find that you
have a number of different components to that software, including extensions,
control panels, and scanning applications. But scanners vary wildly, and your
scanner could come bundled with very few pieces of software — perhaps a
Photoshop plug-in and a light-edition copy of PhotoShop or a similar program.
In any case, there are a couple of caveats related directly to scanners and their
driver software that you might look into:
4 “ Scanner drivers can be old. Check the manufacturer’s Web site or customer-
service line to make sure there aren’t any bug fixes, updates, or new software
releases you should be aware of. This is especially true if you’re using a newer
version of the Mac OS and/or a Macintosh model that hadn’t been released
when the scanner first came Into service.
4 - Scanners may require system extensions. Check your manual to see if the
proper system extensions are installed in your System folder. If not, you may
need to reinstall the software.
4 System extensions may be in conflict. If everything seems to be correctly
installed, you may be having an extension-level conflict. In this case, the
scanner extension may have a conflict with some other extension in your
System folder. For more on troubleshooting an extension conflict, consult
Chapter 32.
4 - Scanner, Photoshop preferences could be corrupted. Some scanner
manufacturers suggest that problems that occur after an initial scan (even
after many scans) may be the result of corrupted files in the System Folder. If
you find odd-sounding files in the System Folder that have “Preview” in the
name, you might want to drag those to the Trash. Likewise, you can delete
the preferences files (in the Preferences folder) for Photoshop or the
scanner’s own software if you have reason to believe the problem is in the
software’s setup, not in the SCSI chain or a hardware problem (for instance,
if the program or Mac consistently and repeatedly crashes or freezes in the
middle of a scan).
One general word of caution: If you’re using PhotoDeluxe or Photoshop and a plug-
in for your scanning, realize that the plug-ins are only registered as the application
starts up; you can’t move the plug-in to the Plug-in folder (in the application’s
folder) and then immediately use the scanner — you’ll need to restart the
application. In some cases, you may need to restart the Mac immediately after
installing the plug-in or installing other software.
Chapter 24 4- Input Devices and Scanners 643
Serial scanners
If you have a scanner that communicates serially with your Mac (usually these are
page scanners such as those made by Visioneer or older hand scanners), your
problems will usually be somewhat more limited in nature. Like modems, serial
scanners usually only have a few things go wrong — extensions, cabling, and power.
If it isn’t one of these three, there’s a good chance the problem is hardware related.
Before you leap to conclusions, check the following:
> Is the scanner plugged in and turned on? As usual, check power before doing
anything else.
-f Is the scanner's serial cable plugged into the Mac and the device? If it's switched,
is the switch set correctly? If you have a modem, a serial scanner, and a printer,
you may also have a switch box or a port extender. Both are popular add-ons,
but you’ll need to make sure they’re correctly set if you expect the scanner to
work.
4 Is the scanner's software active? PaperPort and similar scanners have a control
panel that needs to be turned on so that the scanner automatically senses an
inserted page when you feed it to be scanned.
^ Are you using the right cable? Serial scanners can occasionally require a
special cable that can’t be swapped for any typical Mac serial cable. If the
scanner seems completely deaf to your Mac, make sure you’re using the cable
that came with the scanner.
Summary
> If you’ve got a problem with the input devices connected to your Macintosh,
you might need to look into the possibility that ADB voodoo is affecting your
machine. Although not as prevalent as SCSI, there are some problems that you
should be aware of related to the length and the number of devices on an ADB
chain .
-f Once you’ve eliminated ADB as a suspect, you can troubleshoot the individual
devices. Although a broken mouse or keyboard will usually stay broken
(requiring that you buy and install a new one), there are methods for saving
and salvaging input devices that simply need a good cleaning.
4“ Problems with scanners can often be traced to the SCSI bus or similar SCSI
issues. In fact, scanners can be difficult to troubleshoot because they are SCSI
devices that don’t get mounted on the desktop, like hard drives and
removable drives do.
4 -
4
4-
Monitors, Video,
and Sound
T rouble with your monitor ranks up there as one of the
most frustrating problems you might need to deal with
on a Mac — especially if you’re only having minor trouble.
Because the monitor is a window into your machine, it’s
certainly ideal for that view to be as crisp and clean as
possible. This is doubly so for professionals who spend hours
in front of their Macs everyday, and triply so for graphics and
multimedia creators who need every conceivable advantage
to put together their creations.
But along with keeping your monitor in great shape comes
troubleshooting video problems, getting all your video card’s
features to work, and making sure you’re getting the most of
your video settings. On top of that, if your Mac offers
advanced AV capabilities, you’ll want to work out any glitches
in that system before you take on Hollywood.
Finally, all Macs have audio capabilities, but they’ve been
known to cause some trouble, too. The last part of this
chapter will look at how to troubleshoot microphones, CD
sound, and even the occasional problem with a recorded
audio sample.
4 > >
In This Chapter
Trouble with your
monitor
Video card issues
Troubleshooting
video input
Fixing sound
problems
^ ^ ^
Troubleshooting Monitors and
Video
Most of the time your monitor will just work for you; when it
doesn’t, you’ll probably begin by troubleshooting issues
elsewhere, such as problems with the Mac’s logic board or
power supply. If those efforts prove fruitless, however, and
you find there’s a good chance it’s the video subsystem (the
monitor, cabling, video circuitry, and VRAM) that’s causing
you trouble, you’ll need to move your troubleshooting efforts
in this direction.
646 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
As usual, the point is to isolate the problem. With the video subsystem the problem
can be in several different areas — power, cabling, the monitor’s internals or the
video circuitry. You can also have trouble with the software that drives the monitor,
specifically the settings in the Monitors & Sound control panel. If you have a non-
Apple video adapter, you may also have a control panel and/or extensions that
need to load properly for your monitor to work.
I won't be discussing anything that requires you to open a monitor and troubleshoot
the innards of a CRT. Only trained, qualified monitor technicians should work on
monitors, because monitors are able to hold a very strong electrical charge (on the
order of 30,000 volts) even when they've been unplugged for days. Do not open your
monitor to service it.
When you get no picture
To begin, take a look at the troubleshooting steps for a Mac that isn’t displaying
anything on the screen. If you’re troubleshooting at this point. I’ll assume you’ve
looked at the power supply and related troubleshooting discussion in Chapter 22.
Realize that the monitor can often be affected by problems other than those with
the video subsystem. For instance, a monitor may appear to be blank — and not
responding to keyboard input or other things you do with the Mac — because the
Mac has crashed while it was in a low-energy Sleep mode (see Figure 25-1).
This problem occurs more commonly with newer Macs that support the Energy
Star system, which enables the Macintosh to automatically blank the screen after a
certain amount of time. If the Mac crashes (due to some other software problem,
often unrelated) while the screen is blanked, it may seem as if there’s something
wrong with the monitor. Instead, you simply need to restart the Mac.
Figure 25-1: The Energy Saver control panel
enables your Mac to automatically turn off an
Energy Star-compliant monitor.
Chapter 25 4 Monitors, Video, and Sound 647
If you’ve isolated the video subsystem as the problem, you should begin to isolate
the problem by looking into the following issues:
> Power. Check the monitor’s power cable to make sure it’s plugged into both
the monitor and the wall socket or your surge protector (or, with certain
Apple models, make sure the monitor is plugged into the socket on the back
of your Mac). Check that the monitor is turned on; when you hit the power
switch you’ll probably hear a quick click, pop, or electronic hum that suggests
the monitor is receiving power. Check any LED indicators on the front of the
monitor to make sure the monitor is on and receiving power.
4* Cables. Check the video cable between the monitor and the Mac — if this
cable is stretched, pinched, or pulled out from either end, you’ll be unlikely to
see images on the screen. The same problem is true if the pins for the video
connector are bent or the video connect is only partly installed in the Mac’s
video port.
4- Settings. Check the brightness setting on the monitor and make sure it’s dialed
up far enough. Play with the contrast, too, to make sure you’re able to see
anything that might be there on the screen. If your monitor has a reset button,
you might use it, as well, just in case the factory resets are necessary for
solving some settings problems.
4 - Reset the Mac. If you continue to have trouble with the monitor but you hear
the Mac starting up (maybe you hear the drive whirring and the startup
chime), try restarting the Mac to see if you get a picture the second time
around, especially if there was something wrong with the cabling for the Mac.
4- Zap PRAM. Monitor resolution settings are stored in PRAM. If you accidentally
set the monitor resolution to something that the monitor can’t handle and
then restart the machine, you might be stuck with a monitor that won’t come
up or a monitor that gives a bizarre flickering picture. If you restart the Mac
and hold down §i-Option-P-R until you hear two more restart sounds, you’ll
reset the Mac to its lowest monitor resolution setting.
If none of these steps seem to solve the problem, you should test to see if the
monitor is broken. If you suspect it isn’t able to turn on and get power, you should
test it in two ways: First, try different power cables to connect the monitor to the
wall socket or surge protector. If none of the cables work, try picking the monitor
up and moving it across the room (or into another room) where you have a
different electrical outlet. Test the monitor with multiple cables on that new outlet.
If you still don’t get power (the monitor’s LED doesn’t glow), you’ll need to take the
monitor into a service shop for repairs.
If your monitor does seem to turn on, you’ve got a problem with the cabling or
video circuitry. The best way to test this is to try the monitor and its cable by
connecting it to another Mac’s video connector to see if a picture shows up on the
screen. (Shut down the second Mac, install the monitor in question, and restart the
Mac to see if it is accepting a video signal.) If you don’t get a signal, you might
suspect the monitor’s cable.
648 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
If you do get a signal on the monitor when it’s plugged in elsewhere, your problem
is either with your Mac’s video port, video card, video circuitry, or VRAM. These
are difficult to test on their own, especially if you’re using a Mac’s built-in circuitry
instead of a video card. If you’ve recently installed any video-related upgrades,
check to make sure you’ve seated them correctly and used the correct upgrade
parts for your particular Mac model.
Otherwise, take the system to an authorized service dealer.
Note
According to Apple, a 6100, 600, or 400 series Macintosh will offer no video if the
PRAM battery is dead, so you should replace the battery if everything seems to be
working except the video.
When the picture is wavy or splotchy
Monitors are magnetic devices, with the electron guns in a typical CRT creating a
powerful magnetic field. This magnetic field can build over time, creating problems
that result in splotches of color, unfocused spots on the screen, and wavy areas on
the screen.
These same phenomena, especially occurring at the very edges of the screen, can
sometimes be attributed to magnetic devices that have been placed near the
monitor — In particular, unshielded speakers. Because speakers use electro-
magnets to create sound, they can also create a magnetic field that can distort a
monitor. Most computer speakers are purposefully shielded to keep this from
happening, but home-audio speakers often aren’t. Similarly, the cheaper the
computer speakers, the less likely they are to provide impressive magnetic
shielding.
So, the first step to combat splotches or a wavy picture is to move speakers, stereo
equipment and other electronics away from the computer screen. If you have more
than one monitor on your desk, they can affect one another in this way as well.
Although the Mac OS encourages many of us to use more than one monitor because
it has this capability built in, the monitors are both magnetic devices. If they’re
poorly shielded, they can create disturbances on each other’s screens. The best
plan in this case is to try moving the monitors so their front edges are touching
(that way the multiple monitor approach is still workable) but the backs of the
monitors angle away from one other. If this doesn’t work, you may need to move
the monitors physically further away from one another and live with a gap between
the two. (You can also place a large, heavy-duty, nonferrous cookie sheet between
the two monitors to see if that cuts down on interference.)
You can encounter other external magnetic problems, too, caused by the proximity
of electrical closets, stereo equipment, or other devices to your desk and computer.
In fact, you can even encounter a magnetic problem related to your monitor’s
position relative to the Earth’s magnetic poles. Believe it or not, monitors are
calibrated so they sometimes work best when they’re facing a particular compass
direction, such as east-west or north-south. If you have distortion problems that
Chapter 25 -f Monitors, Video, and Sound 649
can’t be explained by electronic devices, see if you get better results by turning the
monitor 90 degrees in one direction or the other.
Once you’ve eliminated external magnetic sources, you can turn to the internals of
the monitor. To remove a built-up magnetic charge, a process of degaussing the
monitor is required. In older monitors, this usually requires a trip to a service
center — a strong oscillating magnet is passed near the monitor to cancel out built-
up magnetic fields.
Newer monitors tend to include a built-in degauss feature. In fact, many higher-end
monitors degauss as they’re turned on. To test this feature in your monitor, turn its
power switch off and on quickly. (This is best tested with the Mac on and displaying
the Mac OS desktop.) As the screen comes back on, if the picture shudders or
waves for a few seconds, then it’s being degaussed. If this doesn’t happen, look for
a degauss button located near the rest of the monitor controls.
If your monitor has neither of these features, you may need to take it in to a service
center to have it manually degaussed. Check your manual for degaussing advice
and read on for troubleshooting tips to similar problems.
other display movement
If your problem is a display that bounces and waves when you change the color settings in
your Monitors & Sound control panel, you probably have a Mac RGB monitor and a Power
Macintosh computer. According to Apple, nothing is damaged - it's a purely cosmetic problem.
Does your monitor strobe or seem to pulsate? This can be a result of a combination of fac-
tors, one of which is fluorescent lighting. The overhead lighting in many corporate offices
will not always agree with some monitors, especially those that are incapable of higher
refresh rates. If you can, try adjusting your monitor to a setting that includes a higher
refresh rate.
If you can't change the refresh rate, try using the monitor in different lighting and see if that
changes things; you can even shine light from a standard light bulb or a halogen bulb on
your workspace (but not directly in front of or behind the screen) to try to counteract the
fluorescent lighting. For some monitors you can get hoods that go over the top of the mon-
itor and keep light from shining directly on the screen.
You may, ultimately, need to get your hands on a new monitor for this particular Mac,
unless you can move or change the lighting.
650 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
When the picture is blurry
With color monitors, there are three very small dots (red, green and blue) that
make up a single pixel, or picture element. The dot pitch between these dots can
cause a picture to be sharper — the smaller the distance between the dots, the
more distinct the resulting screen image.
However, over time or in reaction to other circumstances, another factor, called
convergence, can affect the focus and quality of the screen image. As the CRT’s
electron beam sweeps back and forth across the dots to illuminate them, the
convergence settings determine the exact aim of the beam. When it misses its mark,
even slightly, the result is generally a slight blooming or rainbow effect, along with a
perceived focus problem.
If your monitor enables you to resize your screen to the edges, you may find that
your monitor has a convergence problem that you really can’t do much about. The
farther away from the center the beam hits, the more likely it is to create a blurry
picture. That’s why the factory settings on monitors often don’t take the image to
the edge of the screen.
Some monitors have external convergence controls for setting the convergence
focus on your screen. These are especially useful if you notice a rainbow effect
somewhere on the screen other than at the very edges of the display. (If the
distortion is at the edges, you should probably resize the screen image so that it
takes up slightly less of the display.) You’ll need to consult your manual and adjust
the convergence by trial and error.
Other monitors have controls more generally called focus; in many cases, this is a
small screw that turns in one direction or the other to affect picture quality. Using a
long, thin screwdriver, you’ll turn this screw to change the focus. Location of the
screw varies by monitor, but it’s often located on one side or the other of the
monitor in a recessed hole.
If you can’t find an external focus control, it’s likely that the focus and/or
convergence controls are internal, in which case you’ll likely need to take it in to a
qualified service center for adjustment.
Murphy's Law pretty much dictates that working with focus or convergence controls
yourself will result in a picture that's worse than when you started. (At least, that's
always the case for me.) If you like, play with the focus yourself. But a poorly focused
monitor is a great excuse to take the monitor in to an authorized service center for a
complete diagnostic session.
Chapter 25 -f Monitors, Video, and Sound 651
When the colors are bad
The colors may be off on your monitor for a number of reasons. The first issue is
whether the problem is with the way the colors look on screen or a distinct
difference between the monitor's colors and printed, color output. In the latter
case, the problem most likely lies with the printer’s settings or the Mac’s ColorSync
settings. (Consult Chapter 26 for more on those issues.)
If the problem is with the colors you’re seeing on screen, available to you are
some quick fixes and some more mechanical fixes. At issue is the fact that the
typical computer screen is actually governed by two different sets of controls —
a bad idea for something as elusive as color. Yet, it’s important for the Mac’s
internals to believe they’re displaying a certain quality of color, even if the
monitor is incapable of producing those colors.
Multiscan monitors can use the Monitors or Monitors & Sound control panel, or the
control strip to switch quickly between different color depths. Some older or highly
graphical programs may not adjust well to the color shift, however. If you have a
problem application, try shutting it down and restarting the program after youVe set
the new color depth. If the application still misbehaves, it may be exhibiting a bug;
look for an update to the program. You can also try restart the Mac, just In case that
cures some ills.
Gamma correction
Internally, the Mac has software settings that dictate the colors. In the Monitors &
Sound control panel (or the Monitors control panel with most pre-Mac OS 7.6
machines), you’ll find gamma settings. These settings determine what your Mac
uses as a reference for the brightness of colors. The purpose of these gamma
settings is to smooth out a curve of brightness that, due to a limitation in monitor
technology, results from the way monitors interpret the video-input signal as
brightness.
When the monitor receives a signal from the video input, it doesn’t translate that
signal’s value — say, 0.7 — directly into a corresponding brightness. Instead, it
increases that value to the power of 2.5. (That’s just how monitors work.) Because
the values are all numbers between 0 and 1, raising them to a certain power results
in them being slightly smsdler than before (0.7'^2.5 = .41), but at varying levels, so
that the values ultimately define a curve (see Figure 25-2).
052 ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Figure 25-2A, 2B: On the top: uncorrected brightness values; on the bottom:
theoretical linear brightness values.
chapter 25 > Monitors, Video, and Sound 653
But all this is only mildly interesting. What we find is that, by gamma correcting the
values before they’re received by the monitor, those values can then be translated
in such a way as to mitigate this problem, resulting in brightness levels that are
truer once they appear on the monitor. So, built into the Monitors & Sound control
panel are two or three gamma settings: Mac Standard, Page White, and Uncorrected.
Page White isn’t terribly useful, having originally been designed for Macintosh RGB
Color Display (it changes the temperature of certain colors as well as gamma
correcting). If your monitor is set to Page White, you’ll likely get odd results from
your images.
Using an Uncorrected gamma means you stick with the original overall gamma of
2.5 for the Mac, which produces a fairly dark picture. This is useful, however. Many
Intel-compatible PCs work with an uncorrected gamma, so you may find that
switching between Mac Standard Gamma and Uncorrected helps you create Web
images that will work on both platforms.
The Macintosh Standard Gamma does the best job of correcting for the inherent
flaw in monitor brightness relationships, but it’s still not a complete solution. Once
corrected, your Mac system has a gamma of 1.8 (ideal gamma would be 1.0) instead
of 2.5. This makes for a much truer image on your monitor screen, although images
still display a little less brightly than they should (see Figure 25-3).
Figure 25-3: These brightness values are more accurate, showing less of a
curve.
654 Part 1114' Troubleshoot and Repair
To compensate for this, applications that deal heavily in imaging will generally
further the gamma correction on the order of 1.8, so as to bring the total gamma of
the system to 1.0. You can see this phenomenon (most likely) in the standard
settings for Monitor Setup in a program such as Adobe Photoshop.
Blurred, faded colors
If you have a particular color that’s giving you trouble, especially white, something
may be wrong with the way you’ve set up your monitor. The Earth’s magnetic field
can affect the way colors are displayed and the clarity of images. Monitors are
generally calibrated to be facing a certain compass direction (either east-west or
north-south) and placing the monitor at an odd angle can sometimes result in
poorer picture quality. (This is more likely on larger monitors, incidentally.)
If you suspect this might be the case, turn the monitor 45 degrees or more and take
another look at the monitor’s image. If the picture improves, you can simply leave
the display facing its current direction, or you can adjust the convergence settings
(if your monitor has external convergence controls) with the monitor back in its
original orientation.
You can also sometimes solve these problems with frequent degaussing and gamma
correction. Symptoms are similar to magnetic field problems, so make sure you’re
not confusing this with a problem related to unshielded speakers or electronics
located nearby.
Too much of one color
Because the monitor connection requires separate signals for red, green and blue,
you’ll sometimes see a picture that’s predominantly one of those colors. Usually
that means the monitor isn’t properly attached to the video port on the back of
your Mac. This is often true if the port itself is a bit unsteady; either the port is part
of an expansion card that isn’t firmly seated or the port itself has become dislodged
from the Mac’s case. (These ports are usually held in place using the same screw
posts that you screw the monitor’s connector into. Try tightening the posts with a
vise or pliers before connecting your monitor’s cable, just to make sure the port is
secure.) Trouble with one color can also be a sign of a bad cable or monitor
connection.
If the color is green, you may be having trouble with an older Mac that sends “sync-
on-green” signals — the information the monitor needs to sync with the Mac is sent
along with the green color data. Most VGA monitors aren’t designed for sync-on-
green without an adapter, and some of these monitors just aren’t as compatible as
others when dealing with older (Mac II and related) Macs. In that case, the
solutions is upgrading the Mac OS software, adding an adapter (Griffin Technology
[WWW. gri f f 1 ntechnol ogy . com/] is one place to start) and/or adding the Color
Monitor System extension. (Consult Apple’s Support site at www . appl e . com/
support on the Web.)
chapter 25 Monitors, Video, and Sound 655
Adjusting brightness and contrast
One of the easiest ways to get the color right on your monitor (at least, as right as
the color is going to get on your monitor) is to adjust the brightness and contrast
correctly. I’ve never been able to figure this one out on my TV at home. (Actually, all
my troubles stem from the universal remote control.) Fortunately, with monitors,
you can follow a quick little step-by-step to get the best results. (In Mac OS 8.5 and
above you can use the special calibration tool in the Monitors and Sounds control
panel for this adjustment.)
Here’s how to adjust your screen for the best color:
1. Place an image on the screen that you can use as a reference. Some adjusters
prefer to use a grayscale image (one with various levels of gray, black, and
white), whereas others prefer a color image. If you use a color image, it should
be one composed of colors that you know well.
2. Turn the brightness and contrast of your monitor all the way down.
3. Turn the contrast up until you see the complete image displaying strong
blacks and/or rich colors.
4. Turn the brightness up until any white in the image is a comfortable but pure
white. Check it against a piece of bright white paper, if possible (hold the
paper up to the screen).
5. Adjust to taste, but back off of the brightness if you feel the whiteness of the
screen makes you uncomfortable. Also note that increasing contrast will
sometimes offer richer colors.
If you find that you’re at the 100 percent mark on either of your dials, back off a bit.
If you keep a monitor at its brightest settings, it will wear out more quickly over
time. If you notice an older monitor losing some of its brightness, try bumping up
the contrast before bumping up the brightness. Be a little stingy with brightness to
keep your monitor around longer.
Glare and positioning
Different monitors will reflect light differently back at the user — and, generally
speaking, the older and less expensive the monitor, the more it will reflect light in
an unsatisfactory way. The result is glare that makes the images on screen more
difficult to look at for long periods of time.
Some monitors simply offer a bad glare problem regardless of how you position the
screen. In those cases you should consult the manufacturer to see if a glare filter is
available for the monitor, or you can shop for a third-party glare filter that fits over
the monitor and mutes harsh glare from the monitor’s glass.
If you think the problem might be in positioning, though, you can take these steps:
656 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
> Tilt the screen downward. The proper way to do this is to make sure your eyes
are aligned with the top of the screen when you’re sitting comfortably in front
of the monitor. (The monitor is positioned incorrectly if you have to
physically look up or down at the monitor.) While you’re looking straight at
the screen, reach out and tilt it very slightly downward. This may reduce glare
from overhead lighting. (If this forces you to look downward at the screen, you
should raise the entire monitor a few inches.)
♦ Choose window location carefully. You should never place a monitor so that a
window is directly behind it. Even though such placement might allow you to
look out the window while working, the competing light sources — the
window and your monitor — will force your eyes to adjust constantly between
brightness levels. And if you place a window in front of the monitor (that is,
the window is behind you when you compute), you’re inviting harsh glare.
Instead, place the monitor at a 90 degree angle to the window.
To promote comfortable viewing, the monitor should always be directly in front of
you (not to one side, even though some computer desks are designed like that) and
at eye level. If you have to lower or raise your neck to look at the monitor, you
should move it. If you’re like me, you give your monitor plenty of attentive hours
during the day already. No point in allowing it to give you back and neck problems
so you have to think about it at night, too.
When the screen doesn't synchronize
Ideally, your Mac and your multisync monitor will always get along. The Mac can
generally recognize what resolutions your monitor can synchronize with and will
only offer you those choices in the Monitors & Sound control panel. However,
trouble can kick in for a variety of reasons; for instance, when you switch or
unhook your monitor while the Mac is still turned on, when you switch settings on
a universal VGA adapter, or when, for some reason, your Mac allows you to choose
a resolution that your monitor can’t handle.
If your Mac’s monitor looks like a de-tuned television set, with the screen flickering
at odd angles and appearing to roll over constantly, you’ve got a sync problem.
(This is also sometimes characterized as a screen full of garbage or snow. You can
usually make out a few desktop-like images, but they flicker by too quickly.) For
some reason, the Mac has set the video’s resolution at a setting that the monitor
can’t or won’t accept. In this case, there are a few things to consider:
> Is everything plugged in? Monitors and video cards will sometimes act odd if
the monitor isn’t completely plugged into the video connection on the back of
your Macintosh.
4 Is it really a multisync monitor? Even if the Monitors & Sound control panel is
confused enough to allow you to change the resolution, the monitor attached
to your Mac may not necessarily be capable of higher resolutions. Try syncing
to a lower resolution.
Chapter 25 -f Monitors, Video, and Sound 657
4 Was the monitor present at startup? The Mac tries to set the monitor to the last
known resolution choice (stored in PRAM) and sense the monitor’s reaction
as the Mac starts up. If you attach a monitor to the Mac after \Vs started up,
you may have trouble getting the two to sync. Restart the Mac with the
monitor attached.
"f Is your adapter set correctly? Most sync problems come from setting an RGB-to-
VGA adapter incorrectly. The Macintosh is sensing the adapter, not the
monitor itself, so the adapter must be set to the appropriate codes for your
particular monitor. Try using adapter settings for a more basic monitor
(640x480 at 60Hz, for instance) if you have trouble with other settings.
Whenever changing resolutions, it’s important to check your monitor’s
documentation for information on the various resolutions it can accept. It can be
damaging to drive some monitors at refresh rates that they can’t handle, for
instance, and you’ll get less-than-stellar results when you change to a resolution the
Mac can’t support.
Usually, you can wait a few seconds after setting the resolution for your Mac. If you
don’t click the mouse to accept the new resolution, the old resolution setting will
be retrieved and the monitor will sync back to its original setting. This is designed
specifically to help users who accidentally set the video to a resolution that the
monitor can’t handle.
If you still have a sync problem, try forcing the Mac to restart (if you can’t choose
the Restart command, hit the Ctrl-§§-Power keys or press the restart switch on your
Mac). If your Mac has a main Power button or switch, cycle the power to the Mac. It
should restart and sync correctly. If it doesn’t, detach the monitor and restart once
more. Next, reattach the monitor and restart once again.
If the monitor still doesn’t sync, you can try restarting the Mac yet again, this time
zapping PRAM. That removes the previous monitor setting, reverting to the factory
default — usually the lowest resolution setting your Mac is designed to display. (Of
course, it resets all those other PRAM settings, too, which is annoying.)
If the monitor doesn’t sync to the basic default resolution, you either have an
improperly installed adapter on the cable, the monitor is bad, or the Mac was never
designed to work with that particular monitor in the first place.
If you don't see the resolution you'd like to choose for your monitor in the Monitors
& Sound or Monitors control panel, you may still be able to locate it. (Just be sure
your monitor will actually support the resolution.) In the Monitors & Sound control
panel, choose Show All from the pull-down menu above the resolution settings. In
the Monitors control panel, hold down the option key while double-clicking the
screen that represents the monitor you'd like to change.
658 Part III ■¥ Troubleshoot and Repair
Old Macs and multisync monitors
Much older Macintosh models don’t often support multisync monitors. Some
machines in the Mac II series, for instance, were designed specifically to work with
the Apple 13” RGB display. Others in the Performa series were designed to work
with the Apple Basic Color Display.
Many of these Macs, however, can be coaxed into running at 832x624 resolution,
even if resolutions can’t be changed on the fly. A special adapter is available that
allows these monitors to sync up at that resolution on a multiscan monitor:
^ PowerBook 180, 180c, 160, 165, 165c, 500 series, MiniDock
"f Macintosh LC 111, Performa 450, 460, 466, 467
^ Macs that include the Display Card 4/8, 8/24 and 8/24GC
Earlier Macs only support 640x460 resolutions and require an adapter to show an
image on a multisync monitor. They include the following:
^ Macintosh LC, LC II
^ Performa 400 series, 600/600CD
^ Macintosh IIvx, Ilvi
Most other Macs can sync with RGB-based multisync monitors without a special
adapter (although they require an adapter to work with VGA-based multisync
monitors). These multisync-ready Macs include the following:
4 Quadra/Cetris series
4 Performa 475/476, LC 475
^ Performa/LC 630 series
4* Power Macintosh (including PowerPC Performa models)
^ Macintosh Display Card 8/24AC
4“ All Mac OS clone machines
Energy saving and burn in
Monitors aren’t likely to burn in these days; older CRTs used to burn unchanging
text into the phosphors of the screen over time, a phenomenon that can still be
seen in some old ATM machines and CRTs used as dumb terminals in libraries or
universities. Eventually, it became popular to use a screen saver to keep the screen
active so the phosphors couldn’t burn.
Chapter 25 ^ Monitors, Video, and Sound 659
Because it doesn’t happen anymore with modern, color monitors, screen savers are
really more for show and play. The odd screen saver will also offer a modicum of
security, requiring a password, for instance, to get back to the Mac’s desktop. This
isn’t overwhelmingly secure since, in most cases, a determined snoop could get
past a basic screen saver, but it provides casual protection.
The way to save the screen and a bit of energy, though, is to do one of two things.
You can turn the monitor off when it’s not in use. Monitors eat a ton of electricity
compared to the rest of your computer. Although leaving your Mac on 24/7
probably won’t dissipate the Earth’s natural resources at a significant pace (the
Mac’s power supply draws the equivalent of a couple of light bulbs), leaving a
monitor on all the time has a much more dramatic effect.
You can also use the Energy Saver control panel to force your monitor to shut down
automatically, but only if the monitor is Energy Star compliant. Older monitors need
to be shut down manually. In fact, with the wrong monitor, the Energy Star control
panel can sometimes cause the Mac to freeze, requiring a hard restart. If that’s the
case, try upgrading to the latest Mac OS or turn off the control panel and shut the
monitor off manually.
Note
Conventional wisdom suggests ifs okay to turn your monitor on and off a number of
times during the day — if s made to withstand quite a few switches over its lifetime.
The debate rages on over the actual Mac itself; if s not a good idea to turn a computer
on and off more than once or twice daily, because the logic board is much more frag-
ile and susceptible to the whims of electricity. Plus, the monitor uses a lot of power
compared to other computer components. The next most energy hungry component,
the hard drive, can be spun down using the Energy Star control panel, too. Of course,
printers (especially laser printers) can eat up a lot of energy. Check your current
printer's documentation to see if it offers any energy-saving capabilities. If you have
the opportunity to purchase a new printer, make sure ifs the type that powers itself
down when idle. Many newer Stylewriter and LasenA/riter printers do this, as do oth-
ers well integrated with the Mac.
Apple monitors
Recent Apple monitor models have become increasingly attached to their software
drivers, as well as integrating with ADB and the sound capabilities of your Mac. If
you have an AppleVision or ColorSync monitor, you should take some additional
steps when troubleshooting the machine.
Here are some of the hot spots regarding these monitors and what you can do
about them:
4* These monitors need to be connected to the built-in video port on 68040- or
PowerPC-based Macs.
660 Part ill ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
4 If you get a green power light, but a blank screen try starting up with
extensions off (hold down the Shift key as the Mac starts up). If this works,
head to the Preferences folder in the System Folder and throw away the
display preferences file.
4 If starting with extensions off doesn’t work, start up and hold down §€-Option-
A-V. Once the Mac is started up, trash the display preferences file.
> Some problems, including crashes at startup and blank screens, can be solved
by reinstalling the AppleVision software. You should also try zapping PRAM as
an interim step. As a last resort, you can reinstall Mac OS 8 or higher and/or
the AppleVision software.
4^ If you have blurry video problems, try using the monitor without hooking into
the ADB port to see if the problem is an ADB issue. You can also start up and
hold down §6-Option-A-V to reset the monitor and see if the video gets any
better. Odd, erratic, or bad ADB devices can often cause problems that are
mistakenly attributed to the monitor.
4 If you suspect the Mac itself isn’t starting up properly, unplug the audio cable
from the back of the Mac to see if the internal speaker is playing the startup
(and/or any error) chimes.
Apple’s Tech Info library offers extensive information on the AppleVision and
ColorSync series of monitors, including setup and troubleshooting tips beyond
these. If you have one of these monitors, recognize that it’s a complex component
in an intelligent system that includes your video, ADB, and sound capabilities. This
makes troubleshooting a bit tougher, so you’ll need to pay careful attention to
isolate problems.
Mac Evangelista tips: VRAM and Mac video
Gerald Wilson knows his VRAM and Mac models. Check out these tips for optimizing video
output using certain aging Mac machines:
"On a Mac llsi, the built-in video is driven from the main memory, rather than from special-
ized video RAM. The llsi memory is logically divided into two banks. Bank A Is the fixed 1MB
on the logic board. Bank B is the four extra SIMM slots which take 1MB, 2MB or 4MB
SIMMs. The screen buffer is allocated from Bank A.
"When you use a llsi, you find that it seems to run much faster in black-and-white than in
full color. In full color, the screen access hardware uses around half the clock cycles avail-
able for the Bank A memory just to refresh the screen, whereas in black-and-white it uses a
small fraction of them. If vital parts of the system are loaded into Bank A (and they are!), the
Mac can now run at only half-speed.
(continued)
Chapter 25 -f Monitors, Video, and Sound 661
(continued)
"To avoid this effect use this trick. Assign larger-than-usual cache sizes to use up the rest of
Bank A, and hence push all System code up into Bank B. Either set the Disk cache (in the
Memory control panel) to a high value like 768K, or set Adobe Type Manager's buffer to a
high value. This way you can accelerate your Mac almost to full black-and-white speed
while still enjoying color. (The Mac llci has an identical architecture for built-in video.
However, llcis are often fitted with level 2 cache, which alleviates this problem.)
"The built-in video for early Quadras (700 and 900) can't drive the 19" resolution of
1,024x768 pixels. However, if you fit the machines with Apple's PowerPC upgrade card in
the PDS slot, the enhanced ROM for PowerPC knows about this extra resolution, and you
will find that when run in PowerPC mode the machine can drive a multiscan display at
1,024x768. (Getting the upgrade card may be a bigger problem, though.)
"The efficiency of built-in video varies from model to model. On early Quadras (Q700,
Q900, Q950), 24-bit color is much slower than 8-bit color. On later Quadras (Q610, Q650),
which lack 24-bit color, 8-bit and 16-bit color have about the same speed. On PCI
PowerMacs (7200, 7500) 16-bit and 24-bit color are significantly faster for 3D work and
motion-video work than 8-bit color. These variations depend on the built-in-video architec-
ture, and whether it is tuned more for color-mapped (8-bit and lower) or for RGB (16-bit
and higher) displays. Experiment with your own machine to find out how It works best."
Cleaning monitors
Although it might seem as though glass cleaner and a good towel are all you need,
you should be a tad careful around computer monitors when it comes to getting
them clean. Note that the procedure is a little different if your monitor uses LCD
technology instead of a CRT — whether it’s a PowerBook or a stand-alone flat
screen.
Here are some tips regarding monitor cleanliness:
4 Power down the monitor before cleaning it.
Don’t use regular, chemical glass cleaner because, in some cases, it can
remove an antiglare coating that’s been put on the monitor. (Check your
monitor’s documentation for details.) Don’t use any abrasives.
^ An antistatic cleaner (you can get them especially designed for monitors) is
fine for use, but don’t spray it or any liquid directly on the screen, because
that can allow liquid to leak into the case. Spray the liquid on your cloth, and
then clean.
662 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
> You can rub the monitor screen with a used antistatic dryer sheet for good
cleaning results.
> A sponge or soft cloth that’s barely wet can be used to clean the outside of
the monitor. Take special care not to drip in through air vents or other open
parts of the case, although cleaning those parts of the case (with a vacuum or
cloth) to remove dust is a good idea.
4 If your monitor is an LCD screen instead of a CRT, be extra careful, because
the LCD screen’s front is made of plastic, which could more easily be
scratched or marred. Use a very soft towel and very little liquid. Don’t use
cleaners — instead, use a little rubbing alcohol (perhaps mixed with water) to
clean the screen. Don’t spray directly on the screen, but spray small amounts
of liquid on your cloth.
Troubleshooting Digital Video and Audio
Apple is now including AV digitizing capabilities in their latest Power Macintosh
models, giving you not only the time-honored capability of adding digital audio to
your work, but also the capability of easily digitizing a video source as well. In early
Power Macs, this capability was evidenced by two S-Video ports and some adapter
cables that Apple included to allow you to use composite (RCA-style jacks) inputs
and outputs. Lately, Apple has been including both composite jacks and S-video
ports on their high-end Power Macs.
These recent additions are creating a couple of new problems that weren’t an issue
a few years back — how to get all these connections working correctly, how to get
the Mac’s video to look good on a TV set, and how to keep good quality sound
coming into the Mac.
In most cases, none of this is particularly difficult to figure out, especially when you
begin to isolate the problem — AV issues are fairly easily to isolate because they’re
very specialized. From there you can move on to some of the more common fixes
for AV problems.
Digital video
In my experience, the problems you’re going to run up against in working with
digital video come from two sources: cabling and software. You need to have the
right software to get everything to work together happily, and that includes a slew
of Mac OS extensions that need to be present for best results. You need to have the
codecs, the QuickTime extensions, and all the various bits of interface code for
dealing with your divergent video and audio sources. And, above all else, you’ll
need to have the Monitors & Sound control panel set correctly.
Chapter 25 4^ Monitors, Video, and Sound 663
What problems are common? Take a look at some of the general issues you may
encounter in your efforts to create digital video:
4 Composite cabling. RCA-jacks and composite cables vary enormously in
quality. I’ve had entire projects come to a screeching halt because of a failure
in one of the little yellow-jacked cables that are included with an AV Mac or a
video-input expansion card. In most cases I’ve found it’s useful to toss those
cables immediately (or store them as an emergency backup) and head out to
Radio Shack for higher-gauge, higher-quality cabling. You don’t necessarily
need gold-plated connectors, but you might ask for what the experts use in
their media setups. These are analog cables, so there’s no real theoretical
limit to their length, although quality will degrade with very long cables.
Depending on the cable’s quality, 50 to 100 feet is a general maximum.
4 S-video cabling. Don’t confuse S-video with something else — for instance, an
ADB or Mac serial port. Force one of these cables hard enough into an S-video
port and you’ll likely do some damage. Also, if you’re getting no picture or
black-and-white images, try switching the in and out S-video cables. Early
Power Macs feature an S-video adapter used for hooking up RCA composite
cabling — not the most reliable setup. If you can, use S-video directly to and
from your camera and TV.
4- HDH5 connector. On early AV Power Macs (6100, 7100, 8100) the HDI
connector is only recommended for use if you already have a monitor
plugged into the AV card. If you don’t have a monitor connected to the AV
card, you may experience an odd ghosting problem that forces you to
constantly switch settings in the Monitors & Sound control panel. (In fact,
you can accidentally mess things up so as to make video capture difficult or
impossible. This problem often manifests itself as a disappearing Video
Monitor — or FusionMonitor — window.) If you have an AppleVision monitor,
Apple actually recommends that you get an adapter and hook it up to the
RGB port on the AV card, even though it means you can’t use the HDl-45
connector for the HDI-45 port.
4 VRAM relationship. Digitizing video inputs require a certain amount of video
RAM to digitize video; this is especially true when working with early Power
Macintosh AV machines. If the Mac can’t digitize at the current bit depth, this
probably means you’ve run out of VRAM. Back down to a color depth of 256
(8-bit) or thousands of colors (16-bit) and try again. (On Quadra AV Macs, 256
colors is the practical limit without a VRAM upgrade.)
4 Speed. A number of things can affect digitizing speed on a Power Macintosh,
including the amount of RAM dedicated to the digitizing program, the number
of background applications running, the Mac OS extensions active, and
hardware issues such as the speed of the SCSI bus and drive to which the data
is being sent. For older Power Macs, the video connector used can also affect
speed — using the 6 100/71 00/8 lOO’s RGB connector results in 15 to 20 times
better digitizing speeds than using the HDW5 connector.
664 Part 111 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
4 QuickTime. The QuickTime software is a major component of any digital
video-editing setup, so it’s important to keep up-to-date with the software. A
full installation of the latest QuickTime distribution should solve most of your
Mac OS extension dilemmas. Beware older games and multimedia applications
that attempt to overwrite newer QuickTime components.
If you’re having trouble getting good throughput when digitizing audio or video, you
may want to try "running lean" when you’re actually going through the process of dig-
itizing. To do this, pare down to a minimum necessary set of extensions, and turn off
any extension that might affect hard driver performance -such as File Sharing, Web
Sharing, Fax Receiving, and Remote Access serving. Check your digitizing software’s
documentation for hints and recommendations regarding the use of Virtual Memory
and disk cache settings in the Memory control panel.
Audio issues
The sounds coming out of your Mac are not only entertaining at times, but often
necessary for diagnostic and dally computing reasons. Whether you’re not hearing
your alert sounds, or you’re not having luck trying to record audio, you’ll find that
audio problems tend to be similar to video issues: They revolve around control-
panel settings and cabling problems.
No sound
If you’re just not hearing what you think you should, try to isolate the problem to
either software or hardware. Remember that the least common denominator is
having nothing plugged into your audio-out port in that case, the Mac will use its
internal speaker. If you still hear nothing, you’ve probably got a software problem.
Check the following when you hear nothing:
4 Cabling. Are your speakers plugged into the wall socket and the audio-out port
(not the audio-in or microphone port), and are they turned on? If you don’t
have external speakers but your Mac has a monitor with speakers, make sure
the HDI-45 plug is connected (for AppleVision monitors) or a cable is
connected between the audio-out port and the monitor’s audio-in jack.
4 Power. Macs require powered speakers for external sound (the internal sound
requires nothing special), so make sure your speakers are a powered variety.
(Some older Intel-compatible speakers and speakers for some portable
stereos are not powered.) Make sure the batteries in the speakers are fresh or
the speakers are plugged into a wall socket.
4 External volume controls. If your Mac has an external volume control, you may
have inadvertently set it to its lowest setting (or It may have reset that way
for some reason). Try tapping it slowly to increase the volume. Tapping
quickly can cause some Macs (using certain Mac OS versions) to freeze
unexpectedly.
Chapter 25 ^ Monitors, Video, and Sound 665
4- Control panels. If you generally use the Control Strip, Audio CD Player, Video
Player, or similar program to change volume in Mac OS 8 or above, you may
notice on occasion that changing the volume has no effect on the sound —
that’s likely because the computer system volume has been set (or reset) to
Mute. Open the Monitors & Sound control panel and choose the sound icon.
Notice the different types of volume you have at your disposal. Click the Mute
button for the master volume level and slide the slider to change the master
volume level.
*4 Sound source. If you’re having trouble hearing input from the CD-ROM drive,
a line-level device, or a microphone, you may have the Sound Monitoring
Source setting incorrect in the Monitors & Sound control panel. Check to see
which device Is currently selected.
♦ CD audio. If you can’t hear an audio CD, check first that the appropriate sound
monitoring source is checked. If the CD-ROM drive has been installed since
the Mac was new, it’s possible that the internal audio cable wasn’t installed
correctly. (There’s a small four-wire cable that connects the internal CD-ROM
drive to the internal audio-in plug on the logic board.) You won’t be able to
hear the audio from a CD over a network or through an external CD-ROM
drive unless you’re close enough to the drive to use headphones.
If you suspect hardware, unplug it all from the Mac (both audio-in and audio-out
ports) and head to the Monitors & Sound control panel. Make sure the computer
system volume is at about half and that it isn’t muted. Now select the Alerts icon
and double-click one of the alerts to test for sound. If you still don’t hear anything,
restart and try again.
Evangelista tip: Other sound interference
Sometimes sound settings on a Mac seem to be less than intuitive, especially if you’re deal-
ing with a program designed specifically to work with sound. Apple's engineers updated
the Sound control panel in early Mac OS releases to the Monitors & Sound control panel
because they felt it gave a more uniform interface for dealing with sound issues. Most Mac
users just find the new tools a bit confusing.
Plus, there's the problem of older programs that rely on the old Sound control panel. My
copy of SoundEdit 16, for instance, allows access to the Sound control panel from a menu
item. This enables me to change sounds settings from within the program — or it used to.
The reality is that these days the sound setttings need to be correct in the Monitors & Sound
control panel before launching SoundEdit 16. (If you have similar troubles, try quitting the
application, setting the sound values and restarting the application.)
Evangelista Nancy L. Spoolman wrote with this interesting tidbit, reminding me of a tried-
and-true troubleshooting technique: When it doesn't seem to make sense, turn off Virtual
Memory and trash the related preferences file. She says:
(continued)
666 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
(continued )
"I like to fiddle with movies, and for the past five years have taken movies of our district pic-
nics, and so on. I decided to put them into a slide show and hoped (when finished) to
record to video, with music. Anyone who works with graphics soon realizes their program
memory runs out quickly. Working with PowerPoint, I increased the application memory
and added more pictures until I had to increase it again and again. At 120 slides (two pic-
tures per slide) I had to turn on Virtual Memory.
"Two weeks later I decided I needed to get that movie done and uploaded to my Web site,
rd already turned off Virtual Memory a week ago. I brought up Avid VideoShop, put movie
clips in the sequencer, and played them back. To my dismay there was no sound! I looked
at the Recording menu on the menu bar and noticed the Sound option was grayed out. I
recalled this happening before, but could not for the life of me remember what it was that
I did. I tried rebooting. Still the same. I was dejected. I decided to sleep on it.
'The following morning I began to put clips back in the sequencer, clicking on this and that,
when suddenly Avid VideoShop quit unexpectedly with a Type T error. I decided to not
restart the computer as suggested and brought Avid Video up again. It indicated to me that
the preferences could have been corrupted when it unexpectedly quit Of course! I clicked
the Continue button, and immediately checked recording on the menu bar and there that
beautiful Sound item was once more available! My mind flashed back to another time this
happened. The culprit was Virtual Memory, which had corrupted my preferences. When the
application quit and I told it to continue, I got my sound back. Am I happy or what?"
Bad sound
If you’ve got static, strange sounds, or an overall sense that things aren’t good
(especially while wearing headphones connected to your Mac), you may have a
problem with sound output. Most of these are settings problems; unless you’ve
blown a speaker in your high-end array of powered sound demons, you’ve probably
got a slider setting wrong in the Monitors & Sound control panel.
Usually you’ll have trouble with sound when you’re playing sound samples; this can
include games or multimedia titles that are playing the samples for you. In general,
you want your sound output settings to be the same as the settings used to record
a particular sample. This helps to keep the sound or sample from sounding tinny, or
thin, as if it’s being played over an AM radio or a telephone. You can set the sound
output quality in the Monitors & Sound control panel, as shown in Figure 25-4.
Usually the highest available number is the best setting, although you may want to
set the output quality lower if you’re using it to test the quality at that level — for
instance, if you want to hear what an 1 IKHz sample might sound like over a Web
audio connection.
Chapter 25 4* Monitors, Video, and Sound 667
Figure 25-4: Setting the sound output quality
If you’re getting static when you play back a sound, you may be playing a 16-bit
sample at 8 bits, or your Mac may not be capable of playing 16-bit samples. The
first Macs with 16-bit audio-out capabilities were the Quadra AV Macintoshes.
Nearly all Power Macintosh models have 16-bit, 44KHz audio-out, but earlier 68000
series Macs only had 8-bit audio-out. The result is static.
Particular Macs also present some interesting sound output problems. Performa
models with a subwoofer offer a separate volume control for the subwoofer, which
can be left on sometimes, even if you’re using headphones. Try switching the
headphones from the monitor to the headphone jack on the front of the Mac itself.
If you have a weird effect in your headphones, you may have the SRS Surround
Sound option still turned on in the Monitors & Sounds control panel. (Only certain
Performa models and their Power Macintosh progeny, such as the Power Mac 5400
and the Power Mac 6500 series, have surround sound. Oh — and the iMac.) Another
possible setting is in the Sounds control panel (if you have a separate version of the
control panel). Check the SoundSprocket control panel for settings to align the
stereo effects more precisely.
If you hear only very deep, difficult-to-hear sounds, you may have only the
subwoofer on in your system, with the rest of the sound turned down. Check your
settings in the Monitors & Sound control panel. The subwoofer is meant to add
deep, bassline sounds, not act as a speaker on its own.
Note
Like any sound system, it's ill advised to set your sound volumes so that computer
speakers and subwoofers are driven at their highest gains. Above about 80 percent of
maximum, you'll introduce unappealing distortion anyway. You may also find that
settings below 20 percent introduce distortion, so you'll want to set your sound at a
reasonable middle level if you plan to work with sound in any professional or semi-
professional capacity.
668 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Sound recording
If you’re trying to record sounds, you may not get the results you want the first
couple of times out. It’s true that many factors go into a good recording, and you’ll
need to experiment a bit to get the best sound from your Mac and your recording
equipment. Here are some common audio-recording issues:
4 Remember that the inputs and outputs on the back of a Macintosh are all line-
level connections. To hear a Mac signal through standard stereo speakers,
you’ll need to connect the Mac to an amplifier. Similarly, you can’t simply plug
a microphone directly into the microphone jack; you either need to send the
microphone through a powered mixing board or amplifier or you need to use
the special Apple Plaintalk microphone.
4 To get stereo audio input for the Macintosh AV and most Power Macintosh
computers, you need a stereo Y-adapter to connect two RCA-style plugs to the
3.5 mm stereo minijack (indicated by the microphone icon) on the rear of the
Macintosh. The latest Power Macintosh models that feature video inputs also
include RCA-style audio plugs for stereo audio input.
4“ If you try to record but get no recorded sound, try to reset the Sound
Monitoring Source option in the Monitors & Sound control panel. If this
doesn’t work and you’re trying to record from the microphone, mute the
Mac’s internal speaker.
4 When you’re recording, record at the sample rate at which the sample will
ultimately be played. One mistake is to create a high-end sound sample, such
as a 16-bit, 22KHz sound, and then downsample, or reduce the quality, to 8-bit,
llKHz or something similar. This process generally introduces more static
and noise than does recording directly to the lower sample rate.
> For quality audio that is to be recorded to cassette tape, VHS, CD-R, or digital
audio tape, 16-bit samples are the bare minimum. From there, 1 IKHz is AM
quality, 22KHz is FM quality, and 44KHz is CD quality. Eight-bit samples are
generally too noisy for anything other than Web broadcast or swapping
between computers. If you find that your recordings seem noisy or full of
static, check to make sure you’re recording 16-bit samples.
Chapter 25 -f Monitors, Video, and Sound 669
Summary
4- Video problems are generally pretty easy to trace, with most of them related
to cabling or power problems. Check all your connections carefully. If the
monitor is getting power but not a picture, it doesn’t necessarily mean
something is broken; there’s a good chance the problem concerns either an
adapter issue or a software issue. There’s certainly a bit of voodoo involved
in setting up monitors, especially because Macs try to auto-sense a monitor’s
capabilities and adjust accordingly.
4- Monitors can vary in quality and degrade over time. You can also hit the
wrong button or knob and throw the whole thing out of whack. If you’re
getting a picture, but it’s not a great picture, you’ll need to do some fiddling
with the controls to get it in shape, especially if you plan to use the monitor a
lot.
4- Macs with video-input capabilities sometimes experience unique problems
associated with video. Most troubling is the introduction of new types of
ports and cabling; you’ll want to be careful as you get used to the different
types of connections used for regular and digital video production.
4" Audio production capabilities have been common on Macs for a while, but
recent changes in the OS coupled with classic sound editing problems can
make it seem as though things aren’t working as well as they should. Beware
multiple settings. The number of different ways to change volumes in software
and hardware may result in your not hearing a thing even if the volume is
turned all the way up.
Printers and
Modems
C H
P
M re you wondering why modems and printers are
grouped together in this troubleshooting chapter? Well,
it’s not only because they both usually have something to do
with the serial port, although that’s a good reason. It’s actually
because, in my unscientific opinion, printers and modems are
the two devices most likely to fail when you’re working toward
a deadline. You’ve got to get a project out the door, a report
finished, or an invoice sent off, and your printer or modem
won’t work correctly or at all. That’s why I thought it’d be
convenient to have them both here, in the same chapter.
It’s too bad these problems can’t happen when you’re bored
on a Friday afternoon (or, maybe they do, and you can’t tell
because you’re not using your printer or modem). But
whenever the trouble first starts, there are usually a few quick
ways to identify the problem and get back up and running.
Once you’ve got things working, you should go back and look
into the whole process, just to make sure there isn’t a more
permanent fix.
In this chapter I’ll discuss printer problems — trouble with
printing, printer driver issues, and some basic printer
networking problems — and modem problems — Involving
both faxing and Internet access. This chapter also includes
information about the Hayes AT command set that can help
you dig deeper into your modem’s configuration, just in case
you want to.
^ ^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
When you can't print
Problems creating
desktop printing
icons
LaserWriter issues
Make your modem
work
4 > >
Printing Problems
Mac-based printers, especially PostScript printers, are really
their own little computers, requiring complex and sometimes
delicate relationships between hardware and software to work
properly. (I suppose I could start every section of this book
with “X is a delicate combination of hardware and software”
672 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
but, aside from networking, this may be more true of printers than nearly any other
peripheral.)
That means you’ll have the occasional weird problem with printers. Surprisingly,
printer drivers aren’t nearly as advanced as they might be; certain printer drivers
based on the LaserWriter 8 driver offer some interesting options, but the system for
printing to PostScript printers has remained remarkably the same over the past ten
years. This can make it easier on printer manufacturers and system administrators
who are forced to update printer drivers less frequently, but it can make it tougher
to find a problem that’s buried somewhere between the Mac and its printer.
You should, of course, start at the beginning. If you can’t get your printer to print at
all, you probably have either a software problem or a configuration problem. Once
you eliminate problems with the physical configuration, you can move on to
troubleshooting the Chooser, System Folder, and printer drivers to see if the
problem is lurking somewhere in those places.
Printer won't print
More than likely this is a software problem. In the modern Mac OS, a few hurdles
need to be overcome before a printer and a Mac will communicate with one
another; the correct printing extensions need to be loaded, printer drivers need
to be present, and the Chooser needs to be properly configured. Of course, you
should make sure the power and cabling are ail set up correctly, too.
It’s unlikely that you’ll have mysterious printing problems, assuming all your
printing extensions and software are turned on according to the instructions in
Chapter 15. At a bare minimum, you need a printer driver loaded (in the Extensions
folder when the Mac starts up), and you need to have that printer chosen in the
Chooser. If the printer is connected using Ethernet or LocalTalk cabling, you’ll want
to have AppleTalk turned on in the Chooser (and the cabling type selected in the
AppleTalk or Network control panel) as well.
With that much set up, at a minimum you’ll receive an error message that gives you
a decent idea of what the printer’s complaints are. From there, you can
troubleshoot the particular error message to see what you should do.
Note
Trial-and-error troubleshooting is the most frustrating type: Plug in the device, test it,
plug it somewhere else, test it. It's important to walk away and take a break occa-
sionally when things aren't working. Keep focused on eliminating the possibilities
and identifying the problem. It may help to closely document everything you do with
a pencil and notepad. Sometimes there's a mystical, magical combination that will
work, so pay attention to what you're doing -you may want to do it again at some
point in the future.
Chapter 26 > Printers and Modems 673
Error: Printer can't be found
You could get a variety of slightly different error messages depending on what
extension is handling your print job (the Print Monitor, Desktop Print Monitor), or if
background printing has been turned off. In any case, the error messages are all
trying to say pretty much the same thing: The printer can’t be found.
Probably the first thing is to check the printer’s power and try printing again. If you
didn’t turn the printer on quickly enough and/or allow it to warm up, you may get
this message. Laser printers especially can take a minute or two to warm up. If you
chose the Print command soon after (or just before) powering up the printer, the
Mac OS may have caught the printer when it was not quite awake.
Here’s a quick rundown of the things to check if you receive either no error
message or a “Printer can’t be found” message, and the problem isn’t a warm-up
issue:
^ Is everything plugged in? Check to make sure your printer is getting power
from the wall socket or surge protector and that your printer is properly
connected via LocalTalk, Ethernet, or directly to the printer port. Make sure
you’re using the same port you’ve selected in the Chooser. Check Chapter 15
if you’re not sure how your printer should be connected to your Mac or
network. If you have a serial switch box, make sure it’s correctly dialed so
that the printer is active. Also, make sure you’re using LocalTalk cabling for
LocalTalk connections and a printer cable for a QuickDraw printer.
4 Is everything turned on? Make sure the printer is turned on, if necessary. If you
have a switch box for your printer port, make sure it’s correctly cabled and
switched for using the printer. If your printer is jammed or has an error, fix the
problem and reset the printer or cycle the printer’s power. PostScript printers
can crash, so it’s always an okay idea to switch the power off and on to reset a
printer if it seems to be causing trouble.
^ Is the printer configured correctly? On non-Apple printers especially, you’ll
probably be able to choose a mode for the printer, particularly if the printer
can switch between networking architectures or protocols, or if the printer
can switch between PostScript and PCL compatibility. Make sure the printer is
on the same page (so to speak) as the rest of your setup. Usually you’ll make
these choices either with dials and settings on the back of the printer or with
an LCD screen and buttons on the front of the printer.
> Is the Chooser correctly configured? First, make sure your printer appears in
the Chooser. If it doesn’t, check the Extensions Manager to ensure the printer
driver is included in the Extensions folder at startup. If your printer is there,
click it to make sure it’s selected, and then check to see if the correct port or
connection is selected on the right-hand side. If you have a LaserWriter or
compatible printer, make sure the LaserWriter driver is selected on the left
side of the Chooser and that the printer’s name appears on the right side.
Select the printer name, if you haven’t already. If the printer is connected via
AppleTalk, check that AppleTalk is active in the Chooser.
674 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
4 Is the desktop printer working correctly? If the desktop printer isn’t highlighted
with a thick, black border, it’s not the currently selected printer. Select it in
the Chooser, or delete the desktop printer icon and create a new one.
> Are the necessary extensions present? In the Extensions Manager, check that
your printer driver is selected to load, as well as the Desktop Printing
Extension and the Print Monitor (both are necessary if you’re using Mac OS
7.6 and above and an Apple printer). If your printer has its own Print Monitor
(such as the HP Print Monitor), make sure it is selected to load in the
Extensions Manager.
The “Printer can’t be found” error message usually suggests some fundamental
problem, such as the printer driver is missing or the Mac is simply confused by
your request to print because no printer is correctly assigned — the Chooser is
misconfigured in some way. You may have inadvertently chosen the modem instead
of the printer port in the Chooser, for instance. This may also suggest that the
printer is turned off or not wired correctly. Check all of these things. If you can get
to the point where you’ve selected the printer in the Chooser and were able to
activate it without incident, you’ve succeeded.
How do you know if you’ve successfully chosen the printer? You will see the
“Change Page Setup” message as you leave the Chooser (see Figure 26-1). This is
the key to love and happiness in your printer relationship; if you see this message,
you will most likely be able to print.
If you aren’t able to select the printer in the Chooser successfully, you may have a
corrupted printer driver or corrupted PRAM settings. Here are a few more
desperate measures to try:
1. Try resetting PRAM first. That may enable you to choose the printer in the
2. If zapping PRAM doesn’t work, try reinstalling your printer’s driver software
from the Mac OS CD or from floppies you received with the printer.
3. If you have a QuickDraw printer, strip down your connections so that the
printer is the only serial device connected to the Mac (remove other port
connections, switch boxes, and so on), and test the printer again.
You have changed your current
printer. Please choose “Page Setup...”
in all of the open applications.
Figure 26-1 : If you've successfully
chosen the printer, this message
will appear after you close the
Chooser's window.
Chooser.
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 675
4. For a LocalTalk printer, check for proper connections, LocalTalk termination,
networking problems, printer driver trouble or Chooser misconfiguration. Try
another printer cable or LocalTalk transceiver.
5. If the printer is connected via Ethernet, troubleshoot your Ethernet network
as described in Chapter 27.
6. If this still doesn’t help, you may need to clean install the Mac OS, install your
printer drivers, and try printing again.
Other suggestions include making sure you have the latest version of the printer
driver necessary for your printer; visit the manufacturer’s Web site to find out. The
printer driver may also be corrupt, requiring that you copy a new version to the
Extensions folder.
You can also try to set up and print to another printer (which proves the serial port
is functional) and/or print to the problem printer using a different serial port
(which proves the printer works). If you don’t seem to be having any trouble with
the printer or the port, you can trace the problem back to a software issue and dive
into your System Folder to find the problem.
In past Mac OS versions, it was possible to load QuickDraw GX when installing the
operating system, which would force you to use only QuickDraw GX printers in the
Chooser. If you can’t seem to find the printer drivers you’ve installed for your printer
(or can only find drivers that have ”GX" in the name), you’ll need to uninstall
QuickDraw GX. You can use your Mac OS installation CD to selectively uninstall
QuickDraw GX (see Chapter 33 for more on selective uninstalls).
Error: Printer port is in use
A “Port is in use” message suggests you’ve either attempted to print to a port that
is being used by your modem, scanner, or a similar device, or you’ve tried to print
to a crashed printer port or a connection that, through a switch box, isn’t designed
for a printer.
Here are the steps for dealing with this problem:
1. If you have a switch box, that’s the place to start — switch to the printer’s
setting and try again. (With some printers you may need to restart your Mac.)
2. Next, check the Chooser. It’s possible you’ve either chosen the wrong printer
driver or your printer driver is set up to print to the wrong port. Check to see
if you need to set the printer back to the printer port.
3. You may also have AppleTalk active and LocalTalk chosen as your networking
architecture in the AppleTalk or Network control panel while trying to
connect to a QuickDraw printer. (PowerBooks behave slightly differently —
see Chapter 29 for a discussion of printer/modem port issues on a
676 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
PowerBook.) With AppleTalk and LocalTalk active, you can’t connect to the
Printer port directly, so your printer driver will default to the Modem port.
Turn off AppleTalk, and then point your printer driver back at the Printer
port. (If you have a QuickDraw printer, you’ll encounter this problem
whenever you zap PRAM or remove the PRAM battery.)
4. If you use a Teleport, GeoPort or any other modem that requires a control
panel, check to make sure it isn’t active on the port you’re trying to print to.
Check other control panels for serial devices such as fax controllers, scanner
software, and other software drivers to make sure they aren’t set to control
the wrong port (see Figure 26-2).
Figure 26-2: The PaperPort is an
example of a control panel that can
take over the serial port without
evidence of that fact in the
Chooser.
5. Make sure you don’t have any docking software for personal digital assistants
(such as a Newton or Palm Pilot) or classroom docking (for an eMate) running
on that port. You may need to shut down the docking server software or a
LocalTalk server if one is running.
6. If you’ve had trouble with the printer just before receiving the error message,
it’s possible the printer driver or part of the Mac OS has crashed, effectively
hanging the port itself. In this case, you should try restarting the Mac to clear
the port. If this doesn’t work you may need to use a program like Reset Serial
Port (on the included CD-ROM) or you might need to zap PRAM.
7. If all this fails, test the printer on the Modem port and see if it works. If it
does, there’s a chance the Printer port is bad; after you’ve managed to print a
test page to the other port, try to switch back to the Printer port. Don’t forget
to test with another cable or set of cables, too.
You might also try a clean install of the OS and a minimum configuration designed
to test the printing subsystem only. Load nothing but Apple extensions and any
others necessary for your printer, and then try again to print. If it works,
troubleshoot your initial set of extensions.
If you get all the way through these steps (and the previous section’s steps), you
may feel confident that you can attribute the problem to a bad serial port. Although
it’s rare, plugging and unplugging the printer while the Mac is powered could cause
this to happen, as could plugging in a cable that isn’t designed for the port. The
port could also go due to an electricity surge, static electricity discharge, or some
other freakish and unfortunate series of events.
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Chapter 26 ^ Printers and Modems 677
We're focused on the printer port right in this section, but surges through a modem
due to an unprotected phone line connection (many surge protectors will also pro-
tect phone cabling) can easily burn out a modem and any serial port to which it was
connected. If you're trying to use the modem port for printing, or you have reason to
believe a modem was connected to the port you're trying to use and was affected by
an electrical surge, the port may be broken, resulting in the error message.
PostScript errors
PostScript errors appear to be caused by only a few different factors most of the
time: corruption, bugs, or conflicts. (These are the problems that typically affict all
software, as discussed in Chapter 30.) Corrupt documents and corrupt fonts can
cause trouble, bugs in the printer driver can cause PostScript errors, and conflicts
between applications and the version of PostScript in your printer can cause
problems.
Here are a few common reasons you’ll get PostScript errors:
> A “Time out” error message may result if you send multiple copies of a
document to print in the background, especially if the documents are
complex. Try printing them one at a time or turn off background printing
(printing will then take over the Mac’s interface until the printer is done).
4 A PostScript error will occur if you create a PostScript document (print to
file), and then try to print that document on a less sophisticated printer. (This
can also be true of Adobe Acrobat PDF files and similar documents generated
at the level 2 standard.) For instance, some modern printers use PostScript
level 2 or 3 instructions that an older, PostScript level 1 printer can’t handle.
> Too many options selected, pages set too wide or tall, or other problems in
the Page Setup dialog box (such as odd or unsupported paper sizes) can
result in PostScript errors.
> Allowing unlimited downloadable fonts either in an application’s Page Setup,
in the printer’s PPD file (in the Chooser, when setting up the printer), or in the
Apple Printer Utility can cause PostScript errors, as can using many different
fonts in a particular document.
4^ A corrupt font can cause errors — PostScript or otherwise — that you may be
able to pin down (especially if you notice which documents generate errors,
and what font they have in common).
If you’ve recently changed something on your Mac (such as the Mac OS version,
your printer driver, or the fonts you use) or if you’re printing a particularly complex
document, you may run into one of the leading causes of PostScript errors — lack of
RAM. If you get a PostScript error and half a printed sheet, for instance, too little
RAM is a good bet.
678 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
You might also need more RAM if you’re experiencing a rash of tiny PostScript
problems, especially if you’ve begun printing more complex documents, changed
your printer driver, or installed a newer version of the Mac OS. It’s not uncommon
to need a RAM upgrade after a few years of service, especially if your particular
printer model was a little stingy on RAM in the first place. (Check your printer
documentation first and make sure it can accept more memory. You should also
check to see if the printer has any special memory compression schemes that need
to be enabled. If these become disabled, it could cause errors.) You should add
RAM or print less complex documents with fewer images, graphics, and/or fonts.
Web ^
For more on PostScript see Adobe’s PostScript pages at www.adobe.com/
prodindex/postscript/main.html. For help with PostScript errors, try
http : //ds . di al . pi pex.com/qui te /errors, htm from Quite Software.
Freezes and crashes
You may find that your Mac consistently freezes or crashes when you go to print a
document. Generally, this is a sign of corruption somewhere in the system. The first
thing to check is whether the trouble stems from a corrupt document, a problem
with background printing or a corrupt preferences file.
Here are some of the symptoms to look out for:
4- Corrupt document. When printing, you get an error message, but the
message also tells you to try again. If the error message pops back up almost
immediately, the document may be corrupt. This can also be indicated by a
document that sits in the queue for a long time when it’s supposed to be
printed or a document that can’t be removed from the queue for some reason.
To get rid of a problem document, open the PrintMonitor Documents folder in
the System Folder and drag the document to the Trash. (If you’re using a
desktop printer icon, you can double-click it, and then drag the document
from the queue to the Trash.)
4 Background printing. If your Mac crashes in response to a movement of the
mouse or a stroke of the keyboard while printing in the background, you may
have some sort of background printing conflict. Isolate this problem by
turning background printing off in the Chooser and trying to print again. (If
there is another crash, it’s likely a corrupt document.) If you have no trouble
with regular printing, there’s a background printing problem. First, check to
make sure your hard drive hasn’t filled up. (Background printing requires that
the file be saved to the hard drive, and then fed to the printer.) Also, try
increasing PrintMonitor’s memory using the Get Info command. If all else fails,
try a clean install of the Mac OS or a selective install of the PrintMonitor.
> Preferences file. Although corruption in a preferences file can manifest itself
in many ways, the most likely manifestation is the most bizarre — the printer
tries to print in odd ways, selections in the Print dialog don’t seem to stay
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 679
current, or the printer crashes regardless of whether or not background
printing is turned on. The fix is to delete the Printer Prefs file or folder from
the Preferences folder. If your printer is a non-Apple printer and/or an
inkjet, the preferences file may have a different name (usually similar to
the printer’s name).
Other things can affect these seemingly random crashes and freezes, including
trouble with the desktop file, corruption or fragmentation on the drive, and a lack
of Mac OS system RAM (or a fragmentation of RAM resulting from running the Mac
for a long time without a restart). You can also suspect the printer’s driver if it’s
aging or the printer’s RAM, especially if the problems occur with more complex
pages.
Note
Desktop printing issues
With Mac OS 7.6 desktop printing became popular and, in Mac 8.0 and above,
desktop printers became even more closely integrated with the Mac OS. If you’re
using these versions of the OS, it’s very common to see people bypassing the
Chooser altogether in favor of desktop printers. However, with this newfound
popularity have come some headaches that might still not be completely resolved.
Desktop printing is certainly convenient, and it offers a more useful and interesting
metaphor than the Chooser does. But it can cause some trouble, too, by
introducing another layer of complexity.
At the time of writing, desktop printing is limited to PostScript printers that use the
LaserWriter driver and Stylewriter inkjets. At some point in the future, third-party
printers should work as desktop printers.
Problems creating a desktop printer icon
Creating a desktop printer icon is fairly simple in most cases: You need to have the
Desktop Printing extensions (Desktop Print Spooler and Desktop PrintMonitor)
active, and then you simply choose a printer in the Chooser. If everything goes well,
the Mac will automatically create a desktop printer icon for the printer — in Mac OS
8 and above, a desktop printer icon is required unless desktop printing is inactive.
You should also be able to throw away the icon at any time; just drag it to the
Trash. The OS will automatically create a new printer icon for the desktop. If you
have trouble with this process, it could be a sign that the desktop printer is
corrupted or some other part of the system has gotten clogged. Indicators include
the following:
4 Nothing happens when you choose the Print command in your applications.
4- The printer queue seems to hang or causes the machine to freeze when trying
to print a document.
680 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
^ Crashes, errors, or freezes occur when you drag a document to the desktop
printer icon.
Error messages are generated by printing, including a message that says a
document “Isn’t a valid print file.”
4 “Printer not found” message appears.
Desktop printer icon appears as a regular folder icon on the desktop.
After choosing a printer in the Chooser, a desktop printer icon isn’t created.
Isolate desktop printing
The errors just listed point to a couple possible problems — usually corruption in
the printer preferences, a corrupt desktop printer or a document that is hanging
the print queue. (After a system crash, a document may be only half printed, thus
causing problems.) The key to pinpointing a desktop printing error is to
successfully print without desktop printing active. If that works, you’ve narrowed
down the problem.
Here’s how to isolate desktop printing:
1. Open the Extensions Manager (if you were forced to restart the Mac, hold
down the spacebar to open the Extensions Manager before the Mac OS starts
up). In the Extensions Manager, disable Desktop PrintMonitor and Desktop
Print Spooler. (If you’re using Mac OS 7.x, you’ll need to turn off the Desktop
Printing Extension, too.)
2. Start the Mac up as normal.
3. In the Chooser, make sure the correct printer is chosen.
4. Print a test document.
If this works, there’s a good chance the desktop printing preferences are corrupt,
an unprinted document is hanging the desktop printing software or something has
become misconfigured.
Desktop printer solutions
Desktop printer corruption generally manifests itself as a printer that just won’t
print; there are no error messages and no indication of printing. Everything is
configured correctly, the wiring is good, and the Chooser is happy, but the
document disappears out of the desktop printer’s window without a trace. (You
may occasionally get an error message that says “Desktop printer unknown error -
192 at 18” or another one in plainer language that suggests you have a corrupt
document blocking the queue.)
Chapter 26 ^ Printers and Modems 681
If you suspect a corrupt desktop printer, the easiest thing to try is to dump the
desktop printer icon in the Trash. If desktop printing has been reactivated, the Mac
will create another icon, and you can try to print again. If not, then you can
reactivate desktop printing and create a new printer as outlined previously.
If your problems are more grave, you may need to jump into your system and
delete some potentially corrupt preferences files and the print queue. Note that
desktop printing should be disabled for this to work. Here’s what to get rid of:
1. Drag all your desktop printers to the Trash.
2. Open the Preferences folder in your System Folder and trash the Printing
Prefs folder. (You might want to take a look inside the folder before trashing it;
it contains some templates and watermark files that you might want to hold
onto. Of course, you can reinstall these by reinstalling desktop printing from
your Mac OS CD.)
3. In the System Folder, locate the PrintMonitor Documents folder and drag it to
the Trash.
4. If you’re working with Mac OS 8, you should head to the Extensions Disabled
folder and invoke the Get Info command on the Desktop PrintMonitor icon.
Add 100 kilobytes to the minimum and preferred sizes boxes. (In later
versions of the OS, this shouldn’t be a problem.)
5. Go into the Extensions Manager and check the Desktop PrintMonitor and
Desktop Print Spooler extensions so that they’ll load.
6. Restart and hold down §€-Option until the Mac starts up and rebuilds the
desktop file.
Now restart the Mac with the Desktop Printing extension enabled. When your Mac’s
desktop appears, the desktop printer icon may be created for you. (If it isn’t, go
into the Chooser and choose the printer you’d like to use. When you close the
Chooser, it’ll create the desktop icon.) Print as usual.
If you continue to have problems, you should suspect that there’s something wrong
with the Mac OS itself. You might try a quick upgrade of your current OS or look for
new printer drivers — check your printer manufacturer’s Web site and the Apple
Tech Info library ( h ttp : / /t1l . i n To . appl e . com/ ) for more advice. (You might
try searching with the text ‘'Desktop Print”.) If necessary, a clean installation of the
OS may prove helpful.
There are some known issues with desktop printing, including various problems
with Quickdraw GX and some specific Apple printers (especially those based on
Hewlett-Packard technology, such as the Color Stylewriter 4100 and 4500). Desktop
printing requires the Shared Library Manager to work correctly, and it won’t work
at all if Extensions have been disabled.
682 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
Desktop printing is helpful and convenient, but I wouldn't hesitate to disable it if you
need to print immediately and you're up against a deadline. You can print through
the Chooser as normal, and then fix desktop printing later.
The endless loop Error
In Mac OS 8.0 (and perhaps earlier -Apple isn't too clear in this case), it's possible for a
bug in desktop printing to create an endless loop error. Your desktop printer tells you it's
trying to print an invalid printer file, and recommends that you drag the file to your desktop.
When you do, it copies the file back to its queue and complains again.
This is what's happened: Desktop printing has accidentally mistaken the hidden directory
on your hard drive called Desktop folder for the hidden directory on your hard drive
designed to hold desktop printing queued documents. Desktop printing works by con-
stantly monitoring a particular hidden folder on your drive. When it erroneously decides
that the Desktop folder is the desktop printing folder, suddenly it sees a bunch of files on
the desktop that seem to be destined for printing.
This is a tough error to deal with. According to Apple's Tech Info Library, here's the solution:
1 . Restart the Mac using the Disk Tools floppy. You can't start up with a CD-ROM,
because that automatically locks the Desktop folder.
2 . Make a new folder in your Mac's main hard drive window.
3 . Drag all the icons that are on your desktop (except for the hard drive, floppy disk,
and T Icons) into this new folder.
4 . Restart the Macintosh with the hard drive as the startup disk.
5 . Go to the Chooser from the Apple menu and select another printer. It does not
matter which printer you choose, as you are simply choosing another printer to
force the Macintosh to create another desktop printer.
This should create a new desktop printer and put things back on track.
LaserWriter issues
For most of your PostScript printing youTI use the LaserWriter 8 printer driver that
Apple includes with the Mac OS, even if your printer isn’t Apple-branded. Instead of
using a separate driver, different PostScript printers use a special PostScript Printer
Description (PPD) file that enables the Mac to differentiate any special capabilities
of the printer. It’s a little bit of a hack job (it doesn’t quite make sense for non-Apple
printers to use a driver called the LaserWriter driver), but it works well most of the
time.
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 683
You will, however, encounter a couple of problems specific to the LaserWriter
driver. The LaserWriter preferences file can become corrupt, resulting in troubles
such as PostScript errors, inability to pick the right paper size, and some other
seemingly bizarre problems. In this case, you should remove both the LaserWriter
8.x Prefs file and the Parsed PPDs folder from the Printing Prefs folder in the
Preferences folder. (If you find a preference file for an older version of LaserWriter
8, you can delete that one as well.)
If you receive Type 15 errors with a desktop printer and the LaserWriter driver,
it’s possible that you’ve disabled the AppleScript and Finder Scripting extensions,
which are necessary for proper operation. Reinstall them from your Mac OS CD or
re-enable them in the Extensions Manager. You may also need to drag your desktop
printer icons to the Trash to reinitialize them.
.-r--
Web Check your Read Me files (regarding the Mac OS, Mac OS Printing, and the
LaserWriter driver) as well as search the Apple Tech Info Library (http: //til .
info . appi e . com/) if you believe you're having trouble with the LaserWriter driver.
There are a number of known issues involving applications and specific printer mod-
els that can be fixed or worked around.
Printer maintenance
The printer hardware itself needs a little care to keep it working at its best. Aside
from drivers, queues, and errors, you’ll also want to look at some of the physical
components of printing, including paper, toner, and rollers.
Here are some hints for keeping printers working:
4 You can clean the outside of a printer with basic detergent and water and a
lightly moistened cloth (you should power the printer down and unplug it,
just to be safe), but don’t use an ammonia-based cleaning product.
4 Be careful what you put in a laser printer. Don’t print to non-laser label sheets,
envelopes, stickers, name tags, or other sheet-fed items that use glues. The
laser printer heats up toner and paper, causing normal label products to melt
or leave glue on the inside of the printer.
> Only print on overhead slides designed for a laser printer. Regular acetate
slides will melt inside the printer mechanism.
4- Laser printers are usually designed to print to at least 20-lb bonds, preferably
paper designed for laser printers (or copiers, in many cases). Avoid incredibly
inexpensive paper that may be too fine and dusty. The pick-up gear can
attract dust from cheap paper, which, eventually affects the paper’s path
through the printer (or the printer may not pick up the paper well or at all,
just spinning and complaining of paper jams).
684 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
> The rollers in your printer can be refurbished if you’ve had your printer for a
while and it doesn’t pull paper through well or reliably. Have the printer
serviced.
-f Adhere closely to atmospheric and temperature requirements for LaserWriter
printers. Humidity and temperature can affect print quality and reliability. In
really dry climates, it’s important to have your printer serviced and cleaned
regularly; look inside the printer to see if toner is flying around inside. Pages
may end up gray or blotched with toner as a result.
^ Color LaserWriters can exhibit a purple haze that results from colored toners
spraying and collecting inside the printer. Have the printer cleaned and
serviced.
-f Color output problems? You may not have ColorSync correctly configured
(assuming you’re using a ColorSync-capable printer). Open the ColorSync
control panel and indicate what sort of monitor you’re using. If yours isn’t
listed, check your monitor manufacturer’s Web site or customer service
center for a ColorSync profile. (ColorSync profiles are stored in the Colorsync
Profiles folder in your Mac’s Preferences folder.)
> Duplex (two-sided) printing (and printing to paper that already has a laser-
printed side) can be tough on laser printers, because the toner that’s already
on the page can cause trouble with the paper path and can flake or dust off.
Consider alternatives to duplex printing or weigh the advantages (saved
paper) with the potential need to have the printer serviced more quickly. You
should also get an opinion on this matter from the manufacturer or your
printer’s manual, if it concerns you. (I would encourage you to have used
recycled white paper, however, even if you decide not to duplex print.)
> With inkjet printers, don’t power down with the switch on your surge
protector or other power strip. Instead, shut the Mac and printer down as
normal. Inkjet printers have to go through a purge-and-store routine (where it
cleans out the inkjet cartridge and moves it to a storage position) when
cycling through the power-down phase. If you pull the plug on it, it won’t go
through this routine.
Troubleshooting printer output
If you think your laser printer isn't giving you the output you deserve, you should analyze its
printed pages to determine what might be wrong. In general, only two problems occur with
laser printers: an excess of toner and an absence of toner. If your page is generally lighter
than normal (and no setting has been changed in your Page Setup dialog box or in setup
options for your printer using the Chooser or the printer's own controls), it's possible that
you're simply running out of toner. If you pull the toner cartridge and shake it gently from
side to side, and then print with better results, that's a definite warning sign; you'll be need-
ing new toner soon.
(continued)
Chapter 26 ♦ Printers and Modems 685
(continued)
If extra markings are showing up on your page, you should determine if those markings are
horizontal or vertical. Vertical problems (for instance, an unbroken line that runs down the
entire front of the page) suggest there's something in the paper's path that's blocking the
output or creating trouble. (You can try opening the printer to see if some sort of blockage
is causing trouble.) Horizontal problems (like dots, splotches or lines that recur every few
inches) suggest something wrong with an internal element — the toner cartridge, the fuser
roller. You can troubleshoot this by trying another toner cartridge (although this may be an
expensive choice) or by having the printer looked at by a technician.
Font troubles
Fonts are the files on your Mac that describe the appearance of text in your
applications (on the screen) and to your printer. Times, Helvetica, Garainond, and
others are all fonts that need to be described so that both the Mac’s screen and any
attached printers know what they’re supposed to look like. So, small font files are
kept in the Fonts folder in your Mac’s System Folder to tell it how to create certain
characters in certain styles.
Your Mac can use three different types of fonts to generate text and symbols on the
printed page — bitmap fonts, TrueType fonts, and PostScript fonts. These three
types behave in slightly different ways, resulting in differences between how they
look on screen and how they print. If you’re having trouble with jagged fonts (either
on screen or when printed), you’ll want to take a closer look at your fonts.
Here’s a quick discussion of the different types of fonts:
-f Bitmapped fonts. These are the original fonts used on the Macintosh, and
they are considered rather limited these days. The exact nature of the font is
described in this sort of font file, meaning you need to have a different font file
for every different size of a bitmapped font. A font family of bitmapped fonts
would feature the one font in many different sizes. If you choose a bitmapped
font in a size for which you don’t have an exact font description, the result
will be jagged. Bitmapped fonts aren’t used much for printing anymore and
should be avoided, although they’re sometimes used to create the text you
see on screen.
PostScript fonts. These were the original outline fonts, a technology that
enables a font to be scaled by the computer to look good at the point size you
choose for the font. Instead of simply consulting a bitmap image of the font, a
PostScript font includes a mathematical description of the font that can then
be scaled as needed. PostScript fonts are sometimes called printer fonts
because they’re really designed to describe output on a printer, not on screen.
Originally, bitmapped fonts were used as a stand-in for PostScript fonts when
686 Part III 4* Troubleshoot and Repair
displayed on screen; these days, Adobe Type Manager (a control panel for
your Mac) is responsible for generating good-looking screen fonts from the
PostScript printer description fonts on your hard drive.
Adobe Type Manager is included with Adobe Acrobat, which can be installed from the
CD-ROM included with this book.
4 TrueType fonts. This technology (codeveloped by Apple and Microsoft) was
Apple’s answer to PostScript when it became clear in the mid-to-late 1980s
that PostScript was a huge hit among Macintosh professionals. TrueType is an
outline font technology, but it’s also a hybrid font technology that works both
for screen fonts and printer fonts. This makes TrueType very easy to work
with, because no special control panels, extra bitmapped fonts, or other
workarounds are necessary — you just drop the font file in the Font folder and
get to work. By this same token TrueType fonts enable QuickDraw printers to
work, as a QuickDraw printer won’t natively support PostScript.
When you look at a standard Mac font-size menu, you may notice something
interesting that you hadn’t before — some of the font sizes are outlines, and some of
them are in regular black text. The outlined fonts are those for which your Mac can
display an accurate point size; the others will appear jagged on screen. If every font
size is outlined, you’ve got a TrueType font selected. If it’s PostScript and you have
ATM active, you may see some point sizes that aren’t outlined, but they’ll still look
okay on screen.
Cross-
Reference \
It’s possible for a font to become corrupt and cause problems for your Mac. Check
Chapter 32 for a discussion of corrupt fonts.
Font doesn't appear in menus
If you’ve recently added fonts to your Mac, regardless of the type, they won’t show
up in your application’s Fonts menu until you’ve restarted the application. (In fact,
it’s best to add fonts while no other applications are running. And if you have an
extensions or font management program, you should probably restart your Mac
after installing new fonts.) All you need to do is quit any open applications and
restart them to see the new fonts. You’ll also find that you can’t move fonts out of
the Fonts folder until you’ve quit all applications and are running just the Finder.
If you shut everything down and your Mac still won’t let you move fonts around, you
may need to startup your Mac and hold down the Shift key to disable extensions (or
hold down the Shift key after the extensions have loaded to disable Startup Items).
There may be a background application running that’s confusing the Mac. Or, the Mac
might just need to be restarted before it will release the Font folder to you.
You may be over your limit and have too many fonts in your Fonts folder (you’re
only allowed 128 fonts and font suitcases, not including PostScript fonts). If this is
the case, some of the fonts will drop out of your Fonts menu. You can get around
this limitation by grouping like fonts together in font suitcases.
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 687
To create a suitcase, make a duplicate of an existing suitcase in the Fonts menu
(suitcases have icons that look just like — what else? — suitcases). Rename it
“master” and double-click it to open it. Now, clear out this duplicate suitcase of all
its fonts. Close it up and store it in a safe place on your hard drive; you’ll want to
use it as a template for creating suitcases in the Fonts folder.
To clean up the Font folder, create a new, empty suitcase (by creating a duplicate
of your master suitcase) and drag it to the Fonts folder. Give the suitcase a name
for the particular font family you’re going to group together — “Times,” for instance.
Now, just drag all the bitmapped or TrueType fonts that you want to include in this
suitcase onto the suitcase icon, and they’ll be stored in the suitcase just as if it
were a subfolder. The difference is, all the included fonts are still available to your
applications (you may need to restart your Mac before it will recognize the new font
folder).
So suitcases help you get beyond the 128 font limit, but they’re also useful for
managing your fonts. You can use a font management program, such as Suitcase
from Symantec (www. Symantec . com/) or MasterJuggler from Alsoft
(WWW. al soft . com) to swap your font suitcases in and out, depending on the
application you plan to use. If you have many, many fonts, you can use suitcases to
group together the fonts you use for a particular application (your memo fonts
versus your artistic fonts) and have them put in the Fonts folder by your font
management program only when it’s necessary for you to use them. This speeds up
the system overall as well as the launching of individual applications. It may even
help your Font menu to appear more quickly in your applications.
Rearranging your fonts into suitcases is also an opportunity for a similar housekeep-
ing chore — deciding which bitmapped fonts to keep. (These fonts usually include a
number at the end suggesting their point size— Times 12.) You can get rid of any of
them for which you have corresponding TrueType fonts. If you use PostScript you
need one bitmapped font in the same family for use by ATM; otherwise, getting rid of
them all should not be a problem. If you’re nervous, just move them out of your Font
folder and into another folder on your Mac for a while. If nothing bad results, toss
them in the Trash.
One other reason why you may not be seeing your fonts is they’ve been stored in a
subfolder of the Fonts menu instead of a font suitcase. Fonts and font suitcases
should be stored directly in the Fonts folder, not elsewhere in the System Folder.
Jagged font appearance
If your font appears jagged on the screen, you should check to see if you’re using a
bitmapped font (you can look up the font name in the Fonts folder), which, in most
cases, you simply shouldn’t do. Choose a TrueType or PostScript font instead,
because a jagged bitmapped font will look bad when printed. In fact, a good way to
test this is to go ahead and print; if the output is jagged, you’re using a bitmapped
font. Choose a different font.
688 Part III 4- Troubleshoot and Repair
But what if the font looks jagged on screen but prints beautifully? In that case,
you’re using a PostScript font and ATM isn’t turned on (or you don’t have ATM).
With PostScript fonts, the associated bitmapped font is used on screen, even if you
don’t have the exact point size of the bitmapped font in question. The Mac will just
scale the bitmapped font to fit, making things look jagged. Remember, though, that
the bitmapped font is just a stand-in for the PostScript font, which will describe
very accurately what you want to a PostScript printer. The result will be a good-
looking printed font. To work around this you can do one of two things: install ATM
or install a TrueType version of the font.
TrueType fonts will never give you either problem — both the screen version and
the printed version will look fine. And, TrueType fonts can offer another benefit. If
you have a TrueType font installed that’s part of the same family as a bitmapped
font or a PostScript font (for example. Times), you’ll never run into jagged text.
The reason is simple: The Mac tends to gravitate toward the best looking output in
both circumstances. When the Mac wants to display a font on screen, it will look for
the right size bitmapped font. If it doesn’t find it, though, it’ll display a matching
TrueType font. (If it doesn’t find a TrueType font and ATM isn’t active, only then will
it try to resize a bitmapped font.)
The same sort of thing is true for printing fonts. If you have a PostScript printer,
the printer will try to print a built-in PostScript font first. If it doesn’t have the font
that you’re requesting built in (most of these printers have about 35 common
fonts built into them), the printer will download the PostScript font from your Font
directory. If it can’t find a PostScript font, it’ll load a TrueType font in the family
you’ve requested. Only after all these other attempts fail will the printer print a
bitmapped font. If the printer is a QuickDraw printer, it’ll try to print TrueType
fonts, and then PostScript fonts (generated by ATM), and then it’ll give up and
use a bitmapped font.
Note that, aside from making PostScript fonts look good on screen, ATM can also be
used to print PostScript fonts to a QuickDraw printer. (The printer doesn't natively
support PostScript, only TrueType, but ATM can generate a TrueType-compatible font.)
Wrong font
There are a few other issues that might crop up with your fonts. Most of these have
to do with missing fonts or missing parts of a font famiiy that should be stored in
your Fonts folder. If you can, try reinstalling your fonts when things otherwise seem
confusing or contradictory. Here are some basic font problems:
4 Displayed font is wrong. Usually this happens when you load a document that
you’ve received from someone else or off the Internet; the document’s author
used a font you don’t have on your Mac. Your best bet is to either find and
install that font (you may have to buy it) or reformat the document with a new
font. If you do have that font on your system, just reformat the document using
that font. Sometimes the font’s ID number can change (from Mac to Mac),
causing your application to believe that you don’t have the necessary font. If
Chapter 26 4^ Printers and Modems 689
you’re using Adobe Acrobat or a similar document viewer, it’s probably set to
substitute a reasonably similar font. If it looks good enough, stick with it.
4 Printed font is wrong. This can be a little more ominous. If you use a PostScript
printer, make sure the printer isn’t set up so that fonts can be substituted
(usually an option in the PPD setup window or using the Apple Printer Utility).
You may also not have enough memory in your printer. If neither of these
seems accurate, the font file itself may be corrupt; try reinstalling the font.
Modem Troubleshooting
In Chapter 16, 1 discussed how modems work and what you need to do to install
one. I also walked you through some of the basics of setting up an Internet
connection. Configuration is a big part of most troubleshooting when it comes to
getting online. Aside from determining that a modem has been struck by an
electrical surge, you should find that your modem works just fine most of the time.
There are some exceptions to that, however. One really good thing to know about
your modem is how much of it exists as a physical device and how much of it is
implemented in software. It may sound like a silly thing to know, but GeoPort
adapters. Global Village modems, and some internal Apple modems have come to
rely highly on software compared to some other models, and this can make a strong
difference in the way you troubleshoot the device. This also presents something of
a Catch-22. A good Apple modem is a great device to have in your system, because
it integrates so well with the rest of the machine. A third-party modem (such as
many Boca Research, Motorola, USRobotics, and Supra modems) is more likely to
rely on hardware for all its operations, making it a lot easier to troubleshoot.
In this section you’ll take a look at both types of modems, along with some
troubleshooting for a GeoPort device. I’ll then discuss some common problems
with Internet connections.
Modem doesn't work
The first thing you want to isolate with a modem is whether or not it’s in fighting
shape. I warned you in Chapter 16, and I’ll warn you again: Surge-protect your
modem. And don’t just plug the modem’s power cable into a power strip. You need
to protect the modem from the phone line, which also has power coursing through
it that can surge. Many surge protectors are designed to protect from phone line
surges as well as regular power spikes. I’ve only ever had one problem that I
suspected was due to a power spike, but I’ve lost more than my share of modems to
phone-line surges. It does happen.
So, before you go rooting through the software configuration of your modem, you
need to make sure it can turn on and seems to be responding to hails. If you’re
getting power, you should check that the modem is being recognized by its setup
software or that it can otherwise be reached by communications software. From
690 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
that point, you can decide if the modem just needs to be reconfigured or if
something worse has happened.
Note
If you have a Performa or "consumer" Power Macintosh model (5300, 5400, 6400,
6500), realize that it may have a modem preinstalled in the internal communications
slot. If this is the case, you can't install an external modem by connecting it to the
Modem port until that internal modem is removed. You can, however, install an exter-
nal modem If that port is filled with an Ethernet card.
External modem
Plug in the modem and turn it on. If it’s getting power, you should see an indicator
light to that effect. If not, check the power connections. Some modems are powered
by the ADB port on your Mac; make sure that port is functional and that it isn’t
overloaded with ADB devices. If your modem fails to show a power indicator, try
plugging it into a different wall socket or somewhere else in the building. If there’s
still no life, the modem is probably dead or broken — take it in for repairs or
replacement.
Some modems have a control panel that’s used to help identify the modem to the
Macintosh, as in Figure 26-3. (This is especially true of Apple and Global Village
modems.) If you get an indicator light, but you’re having trouble getting that
control panel to recognize the modem, you’ll want to try and rule out a problem
with the port.
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must be recognized by their control panel
before the/11 function properly.
To do this, begin by resetting the control panel (or click to cycle the Modem On/Off
setting in the panel) to see if it is able to detect the modem. Make sure the control
panel is set to look at the correct serial port. If not, try to change the control panel
to recognize that serial port. If you can’t investigate why that serial port is being
used by another device, check your control panels, PDA docking devices, Newton
servers, and other potential conflicts.
Chapter 26 4 - Printers and Modems 691
If you can’t find a conflict, try resetting the port by restarting your Mac or using the
Reset Serial Port program. Zapping PRAM may also be necessary to reset the port.
If you’re able to set the software to the correct port, but it still won’t recognize the
modem, turn the modem off, wait a few seconds and turn the modem on again. If
the modem gets its power from the ADB port, you might need to shut the Mac all
the way down (not just restart), and then restart using the Power key or switch on
the Mac. That should reset ADB devices, including the modem.
If you still can’t get the control panel to recognize the modem, try shutting down
your Mac and placing the modem on the other serial port. Next, make sure no
devices conflict (you’ve probably chosen the printer port, so make sure no printers
or scanners expect to use the printer port), and try to set the modem up to w^ork on
the printer port. If it works, there might be a problem with your modem port. If it
doesn’t work, there may be a problem with the modem or the cable you’re using to
connect the modem to the Mac; try another cable before giving up on the modem.
If the modem is specifically a Global Village Teleport modem, the problem may be the
power supply you used to plug the modem in. I don't know if this happens for other
modems, manufacturers, or models, but when I upgraded once from a Global Village
Teleport Internet Edition 33.6 modem to a Teleport X2 56 Kbps modem, I failed to
use the power supply included with the new modem. (I plugged it in using the 33.6's
supply, because it was already so conveniently plugged in under my desk.) After an
hour on the phone with a friendly tech support representative, she recommended
that I switch the power supply. I did so, reset the Teleport control panel and the
modem popped right up. And, it hasn't given me trouble since.
Internal modem
A nonworking internal modem can be a bit tougher to troubleshoot. In most cases,
the problem is one of configuration; internal modems are either Apple-branded or
from Global Village. They always require a control panel to function correctly, and
those control panels are usually the source of any trouble.
The only exception would be a modem that has been hit by a phone-line surge or
has failed for some other reason, perhaps a manufacturing defect or a power surge
that hit the entire system. If you suspect such a possibility, you’ll need to take the
modem to an authorized service center.
Otherwise, you can troubleshoot an internal modem through its control panel:
4“ Quit any communications programs that may be interfering with the internal
modem, including a PPP connection or an America Online session.
4* Make sure the control panel is installed and that the modem is turned on in
the control panel.
692 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
4^ Click the reset button in the control panel, if there is one.
4- Shut the Mcic all the way clown, and then restart and try again to reconfigure
the modem through the control panel.
4^ Zap PRAM.
If after trying any of these actions the control panel tells you the modem is working,
you can move on to the section “Connection trouble.” Otherwise, you should shut
down the Mac and examine the card to make sure it’s set correctly on the logic
board. If it is, move on to troubleshooting extension conflicts, as there may be a
conflict with your modem’s control panel. Finally, you can try a clean install of the
Mac OS, reinstall the modem software, and see if that helps.
Connection trouble
If you’re getting a response from your modem (it lights up, the control panel
recognizes the modem, and so on) you may still be encountering difficulty getting
the modem to connect with another modem. This can be somewhat difficult to
troubleshoot, because a seemingly functional modem on your end shouldn’t have
too much trouble dealing with other modems. Be aware, though, that two factors
can affect any modem connection: phone line quality and slight incompatibilities
between modems. Either of these can make a particular modem connection
impossible to complete, no matter what attempts you make to fix things.
But you can try anyway. If you’re having trouble getting a modem to connect, the
issue is likely in software. If your modem has its own control panel, for instance,
settings in that control panel may need to be tweaked to complete the connection.
It’s also important to realize that individual communications programs — such as
America Online, a terminal emulator, or your fax modem software — can be
responsible for storing modem settings as well. Unfortunately, the integration of the
modem into the Mac OS hasn’t been a smooth ride characterized by complete
control by Apple; instead, applications have historically been responsible for
dealing with modems on their own, so a few different systems have emerged.
These days, newer software have more central settings than they can deal with, and
there’s even a Modem control panel that’s used by the Mac OS’s Open Transport
software to allow for PPP connections to the Internet. If you’re able to use Open
Transport with your Mac, you’ll find that these connections are fairly simple to
troubleshoot. Otherwise, you’ll need to look at your communications applications
individually.
wiring and indicators
The first problems to check are the physical connections and indicator lights. If
your external modem has lights glowing on the front, do they indicate that there’s
Chapter 26 4- Printers and Modems 693
activity? If your modem has transmit/receive lights (labeled TX/RX or with an arrow
icon) and they’re blinking or lit, the modem may believe it’s communicating when
it’s not. Reset the modem, reset the Mac, check the serial cable connection or try
another cable. If these fail to turn the lights on (or if the lights are on after the
modem’s power has been cycled and with the modem disconnected from the Mac),
suspect a hardware problem.
If the on-hook light (labeled “OH”, or with a telephone or telephone poles icon) is
lit, there may be a problem with the phone wiring, the serial cable, or the modem
itself. Reset the modem and check the cabling. Reset the computer. If all these fail,
suspect the modem.
Modem settings
If your problem doesn’t involve a hardware issue, you should start looking for an
option to change the settings for your modem. In most cases, you won’t need to get
too deep into the codes that govern a modem’s setup; you’ll likely be able to find a
modem-configuration profile that matches the modem brand and model that you’re
using. If you can’t find an exact duplicate, check your modem’s manual — it will
likely list alternatives.
Two important examples of potentially problematic modem settings come to mind:
those for America Online and for Open Transport PPP. Both install on your Mac
with a slew of modem configuration profiles that match particular modem models.
If you’re having trouble getting your modem to connect, check for one of these
profiles to ensure it’s properly set (see Figure 26-4).
As something of an aside, if youTe an AOL user and you have another Internet sen/ice
provider, you can use AOL over a TCP/IP connection (instead of over a modem con-
nection), enabling you to run other Internet applications at the same time. This will
especially speed up your AOL experience if you have high-speed Internet access
through an ADSL, cable, ISDN, or T-1 connection. It can also be a workaround if you
can get your ISP connection to work, but your modem refused to dial out or connect
directly to AOL.
694 Part 1114- Troubleshoot and Repair
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If your modem doesn’t enable you to choose a predesigned modem profile, you may
need to dip into the underlying configuration language for the modem. In most
cases, this language conforms to the Hayes AT command set standard, which is used
by most modems to enable the user to manually communicate settings. If your
communications program offers an option to enter a configuration string, it is most
likely looking for a string of AT commands.
Although it might be mildly amusing to learn the AT command structure, you’ll
likely find the recjuired configuration string in your modem’s manual. In fact, the
factory default settings for nearly all modems is a very simple string:
AT&Fl
This will set the modem to the number one set of factory recommendations. You
may find that your manual allows for a few different default configurations, such as
AT&F2, and so on. In any case, a problem modem can often be fixed by simply
entering the preceding line as your configuration string. If you need to get a bit
more specialized, though, you can, as shown in the next section.
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 695
The AT command set
Although the AT command set is reasonably standard, you’ll find that the command
set has been altered and extended; the necessities have changed over the 15 or
more years that the set has existed as a popular way to deal with modems. For the
most part, though, you can hold on to a couple of truisms.
The command set is usually used to offer a command or a series of commands to
the modem. Most of these are configuration settings, although a certain number of
them are used to actually control the modem. (In fact, your communications
program is using these commands behind the scenes.) In many instances, you’ll use
the command set to create a single string of commands that make up the
configuration string. You’ll enter this string in the modem preferences portion of
your communications program.
However, these commands can also be used in a terminal application to directly
control the modem. (Examples of terminal applications are zTerm, Microphone,
White Knight, the communications module in ClarisWorks, and the terminal window
option in your PPP dialer.) These commands begin with the letters AT (which puts
the modem in attention mode) and end with the command, usually another series
of letters. Here are some commands you might find useful (after any command,
you’ll hit the Return key to invoke it):
ATDT Picks up the connection and dials the telephone using tones (usually
followed by numbers, as in ATDT5551212). You could also use ATDP
for pulse (rotary) dialing. Use the comma modifier (ATDT9,5551212)
to introduce a pause when dialing, or a W modifier (ATDT9W5551212)
to force the modem to wait for a dial tone before continuing to dial.
ATH Hangs up the connection.
ATZ Resets the modem or modem card.
ATA Enters auto-answer mode.
+++ Serves as an escape sequence, enabling you to bring the modem from
a communications mode into a command mode again so that AT
commands will be recognized.
A typical configuration string begins with an AT command, followed by a string of
other commands. Note that some commands have an ampersand (&) or percent
mark (%) before them. An example of a configuration string might be as follows:
AT&F1M0&K4X1W2
In this case, the configuration string is telling the modem to initiate the first factory
default settings, but turn the speaker off (MO), enable Xon/Xoff flow control (&K4),
disable dial tone and busy signal detection (XI), cind enable CONNECT messages
696 Part 1114^ Troubleshoot and Repair
based on the modem-to-modem speed. These are standard commands that might
help you get a least-common-denominator connection if you’re having tons of
trouble getting two modems to talk — across an international long-distance phone
connection, for instance. Check your modem’s manual for suggestions on adding AT
commands to the factory default.
Some common AT command parameters include the following (note that the jc in
each represents a number, usually between 0 and 4, with some exceptions
depending on the number of options in each parameter):
Qx Returns result codes (0); Doesn’t return result codes (1); Returns
codes when in originate mode only (2)
Va* Returns short result codes (0); Returns long result codes (1)
Wjc Does not return negotation progress (CONNECT) messages (0);
Returns progress messages that show the computer-to-modem
speed (1); Returns progress messages that show the modem-to-
modem speed (2)
Xx No busy or dial tone detection (0); Returns CONNECT message,
no busy or dial tone detection (1); Modem waits for dial tone, no
busy detection (2); Modem detects busy tone, doesn’t wait for
dial tone (3); Modem gives call progress, detects busy tone, dial
tone and connection speeds (4)
Mx Disables speaker (0); Speaker on until connect (1); Speaker
always on (2); Speaker on after carrier detected (3)
&Kx Disables flow control (0); Enables RTS/CTS hardware flow control
(3); Enables Xon/Xoff flow control (4)
&Qx No error correction (0); Selects v.42 error correction (5); Selects
MNP error correction (8)
&Ax' Connects as answering modem when auto-answering (0);
Connects as originating modem with auto-answering (1)
8lCx Forces modem carrier detect on at all times (0); Causes modem
to track actual state of carrier detect (1); Forces carrier detect on
except at disconnect (2)
&Fjc Enables Hayes compatible settings (0); Enables IBM-compatible
settings (1); Enables Mac software handshake settings (2);
Enables Mac hardware handshake settings (3)
Oa’ Returns to online mode from command mode (0); Returns to
online mode and retrain (1); Returns to online mode and
negotiate the rate (2)
Chapter 26 ^ Printers and Modems 697
To a certain degree, it’s up to you and your modem’s manual to decipher the exact
meaning of some of these commands and determine what they’re going to do for
you. Your manual may also have a more extensive reference and/or your modem
may support many more commands than these; this is only a subset of commands
that make sense to me. Your mileage may vary — in fact, your modem may not
support every number of each of these commands, or it may offer more options for
one or more of the commands.
If you have a very specialized program or modem-based task and you need help
setting your modem’s internals, the AT command set a good place to start.
Dial tone
Modems are designed to detect the dial tone on the line before dialing, saving you
from the confusion of waiting for the modem to connect when it’s actually dialing
on a dead line — or, to keep you from being intrusive if you accidentally dial the
modem when somebody else is talking on an extension.
This results in one common error: The modem can’t find a dial tone. To test this
problem, check to see if there really is a dial tone; plug a phone into the modem, if
necessary, or pick up another extension on that same line. If you don’t hear a dial
tone, inspect your phones to make sure one of them hasn’t been left off the hook. If
you do hear a dial tone, it’s possible that your modem needs to be reset or more
drastic action needs to take place.
To reset the modem, choose the Reset command in the modem’s control panel. If
that doesn’t work or if your modem doesn’t include a control panel, simply turn the
modem itself off and on again. If the modem doesn’t have its own independent
power switch, you may need to shut the Mac all the way down, and then start up
again from the Power switch or key.
If resetting and/or restarting doesn’t solve the problem, you may be having some
trouble with the phone wiring that’s connected to the modem or in your house. Try
connecting the modem to the phone connector in your wall using a different RJ-11
phone cable. You might also try connecting the modem directly to the wall plug if
you’ve had other devices on that same line in the past. Sending the signal through
many different devices and connectors may be creating some interference for the
modem.
If rearranging the devices doesn’t help, you could have less-than-perfect wiring in
your home, office, or neighborhood. If that’s the case, the best solution is to try and
turn off the requirement for a dial tone before the modem connects. This setting is
often in the communications program’s Preferences or Settings dialog box. For
Open Transport PPP connections, the setting is in the Modem control panel (see
Figure 2(>5).
698 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Figure 26-5: The Modem control panel
has an option that forces the modem to
dial without checking for a dial tone.
Note that stutter dial tones and other tone-related features that the phone company
may implement can interfere with a modem’s ability to recognize the dial tone. If
that’s the case, your only option is to turn off dial tone checking. You can do this
through the modem’s software or using the Xx AT command in the modem’s
configuration string. (See the AT command set section earlier in this chapter.)
Busy signal
Some modems will report that they’ve received a busy signal, even if what they’re
really hearing is just an odd sort of ringing sound. This can be especially true on
international long-distance calls or particularly noisy phone lines. If that’s the case,
your only option is to dig into the AT command set and invoke the Xx command;
although some programs do, most Mac modem software doesn’t include a “Don’t
detect busy signal” option.
Manual dial/answering
If you simply can’t seem to convince your modem to dial the right sequence of
numbers or pause for the correct amount of time, you might consider invoking the
manual dial options in your communications software — if the software allows it.
For PPP connections, this can often be accomplished by opening the options for a
particular dial up connection and choosing the Terminal Window option. You can
then dial using the AT command ATDT, followed up by the appropriate numbers
and commas for pauses.
To answer an incoming call, you can choose the Answer command in your modem
software or enter ATA in a terminal window.
Other communications programs — especially fax programs — will enable you to
actually dial the number using a telephone set, and then click the button in the
program to finish the connection. Likewise, you’ll often be able to choose a manual
receive command when someone dials your computer with fax-modem software or
a fax machine.
Chapter 26 -f Printers and Modems 699
Problems during the call
Once the call is negotiated, you’ll likely have a smooth connection. But be aware of
a few caveats that can reset your connection or otherwise interrupt your modem
sessions:
^ Call waiting. If you dial out with a modem on a line that has call waiting
active, you may be disconnected when the signal tone plays on the line to
indicate a call. Because you can’t answer the call anyway, it’s recommended
that you disconnect your call-waiting service when you plan to call out using
the modem. Usually there’s a code that the phone company provides for
temporarily disconnecting this service. In many areas in the US, the code is
*70. So, you can enter the dialing command: ATDT*70, phone number to
disconnect call waiting and dial the number.
-f Noisy line. If you pick up a regular handset and hear static or noise on the
phone line, there’s very little chance that you’ll get a good data connection.
You should have the line tested by the phone company and your internal
phone wiring check by a professional. (If you have a long extension cord or
many different adapters and couplers on the line, you might test right at the
wall socket itself — even with a regular phone and a short cord — to see if it’s
an internal wiring issue.)
4 Latency, typing problems. If your communications software is text-based, you
may have trouble typing or sending data occasionally. This can sometimes be
a problem or slowdown with the connection, although it may also be an issue
with your OS. If you experience these same slowdowns in word processing
programs, for instance, suspect a slight extensions conflict, too little RAM
allocated to your applications, or a poorly maintained, fragmented hard drive.
4- Excessive errors. If your communications software is slowed down because
it’s dealing with many errors during a file transfer, check the line for
indications of noise. If the line seems okay, check your software for the proper
settings for your particular modem and Mac (taking into account the flow-
control settings, discussed in Chapter 16). Finally, try connecting to the other
modem at a lower bps rate.
Don’t forget to check your modem’s manual, where you’ll likely find more
troubleshooting hints specific to your particular modem brand and its internal
commands and characteristics.
700 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Summary
4“ Printing problems often boil down to a few key error messages that you can
troubleshoot. The printer needs to be connected properly and the Chooser
needs to be configured with care, but that won’t necessarily stop problems
from occurring. You could have a corrupt document or preferences file
causing trouble or a conflict between serial devices, drivers, and/or system
software components.
> PostScript and desktop printing can cause their own sets of errors and
problems. PostScript problems can very often be fixed with minor changes to
your document or the Page Setup dialog box, or by adding RAM to your
printer (or turning on additional features in your printer). Desktop printing
problems tend to be corruption issues, especially if a system crash occurs
while you’re printing a document in the background.
4 Printers themselves need some care, including cleanings, good supplies, and
the occasional check-up from a professional. And, fonts can give you some
trouble when you’re trying to get your printouts to look good.
4 - Modem trouble often centers on either a configuration problem (which can
get somewhat complicated, depending on the modem) or trouble with your
phone lines. Many different Issues can be overcome for successful modem
communications, including noisy lines, weird dial tones, call-waiting and other
annoyances. And you can do these things yourself — getting nearly any
modem application to work correctly, to boot — with a little knowledge of the
Hayes AT command set.
4 ^ 4 -
4 ^
Networking
Issues
I f youVe already begun adding a network to your office or
have been in the process of upgrading — perhaps with
some help from Chapter 17 — you’re fully aware that
networking is about snaking a lot of cable around furniture,
through walls, and into the back of Macs. This can certainly be
cause for headaches, even without throwing failure and
misconfiguration into the mix.
You will occasionally encounter a failure in your network —
whether it’s a software glitch, a problem with cabling, or an
issue with an Ethernet add-on. To be prepared for this, the
best approach is to be organized (and, as always, to have a
good backup system).
If you’re lucky, most of the problems you encounter when
troubleshooting a network will be due to configuration
problems, such as AppleTalk not being set up properly,
Ethernet cards not chosen in the appropriate control panels,
and so on. However, don’t rule out the possibility that the
cabling could be giving you trouble (keep your receipts) or
that your problem potentially lies with the hardware, such as
transceivers or network interface cards.
Troubleshooting Your Network
If you’re responsible for a network in a company or
organization, it’s probably not a bad idea to have a schematic
of your network, geeky as that may sound. If you can get a
copy of your building’s blueprints, so much the better.
Regardless, you should sketch out the offices and detail each
connection. A few things are really useful to know:
^ ^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
Troubleshooting a
network
When networks go
down
Jumpstarting
AppleTalk
Keeping file sharing
up and secure
Troubleshooting
TCP/IP
^ ^ ^ ^
702 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
> How long is each length of cabling?
-f Where is the cabling? In the roof, the wall, under the carpet?
> In what order are the daisy-chained Macs connected?
4 What port is each Mac wired to on your hub?
4 How does each Mac connect to the network? Via expansion card, transceiver,
built-in port, or other method?
4 What version of AppleTalk and/or Open Transport does each Mac have?
4 Any other special characteristics? Shared QuickDraw printers, AppleTalk
zones, special privileges, any others?
You’ll find that tracking your network connections and assets like this will probably
be a big help, especially if you track things in pencil. You might also want to keep a
log of exactly what you do whenever you’re forced to add something or
troubleshoot the network. In my experience, it’s very easy to forget exactly how or
why you did something, even if it was only a few days or weeks ago.
This level of organization will also help you combat networking voodoo, as it gives
you a quick-and-easy way to check the overall length of your network cabling,
account for missed connections, or know exactly what you’re looking for when you
examine the hub’s flashing lights. Having this information at your fingertips will
likely help you get the network up and running as quickly as possible after a
problem hits.
Thus prepared, you can jump into the world of network troubleshooting.
The different networking architectures are explained in Chapter 17. In this chapter,
you’ll notice that troubleshooting the hardware in a LocalTalk and a 10Base2 Ethernet
network are similar, because both chain computers together to create a bus topology,
or a long network all continuing a single data line. Their hardware, software, and per-
formance characteristics are completely different, though, so their troubleshooting
isn’t always similar.
Can't connect a Mac
If you’re having trouble getting a single Mac connected to your network, you should
check the hardware first, and then suspect the software. In most of these cases, it’s
an issue of mlsconfiguratlon. Occasionally, hardware is to blame. Your first step will
be to check the hardware connections and make sure the network is laid out and
connected properly. You can then test the software side. If you get error messages,
chase those down to their software or hardware origins and act accordingly.
Chapter 27 Networking Issues 703
Evangelista tip: The right mindset
As IVe said, some of troubleshooting is more about the process — how you go about iden-
tifying the problem —than it is knowing a bunch of facts about Macs. Your first step is to try
some basic first aid troubleshooting techniques to figure out the problem. Then you can
jump into the reference books and Web sites to learn about known fixes. I think system
administrator Mike Kent agrees, judging by this tip:
"Recently one of my users had a really weird problem. On bootup, his Mac attempted to log
into another Mac, and it crashed whether the operation was canceled or the password was
entered and OK clicked. It booted okay if extensions were disabled, but then there was no
access to the network volume or anything else.
"His Mac didn't have the capacity or the correct copy of Open Transport to handle the log in,
apparently, so enabling only a basic set of networking extensions in Extensions Manager
got us to the desktop, where the remote volume could be accessed in the Chooser and his
choice to automatically log onto the remote Mac could be undone. I run into lots of stuff
like this, and it's mainly a matter of figuring out how to attack the problem."
Check hardware
YouTl begin by checking the connections at your problematic Mac and, in some
cases, elsewhere on your network:
1. Check the connection between the Mac and the transceiver. Make sure it’s
completely and securely connected.
2. Check the cabling at the transceiver. If this is a LocalTalk or 10Base2
connection, make sure the incoming cable connector is coming from the
previous computer in your daisy chain and the outgoing connector is the right
cable for the subsequent computer. It’s possible to loop the connection back
on itself and accidentally end the network improperly or prematurely.
3. Check the connections to other computers (on a LocalTalk/10Base2 network)
or to the hub (on a lOBaseT network). You might try a different port on the
hub if you suspect the current port might be faulty.
4. On a LocalTalk/ 10Base2 network, check for proper termination at this Mac or
at the end of the network chain — wherever is appropriate. If the network isn’t
terminated, you may have trouble getting this Mac and/or others to connect.
You may have other hardware troubles, such as bad transceivers, cabling, or
connectors, but this is tough to know without thoroughly troubleshooting the
software on your Mac.
704 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Check software
The first thing you need to check before troubleshooting the software connections
is to make sure all the appropriate Mac networking software has been loaded at
startup. A series of extensions and control panels are necessary for the Mac to
successfully find and work with a network; you’ll need all the software loaded
before your Mac can get connected.
Assuming you’re using Mac OS 7.6 or higher, the software you need loaded includes
the following:
4 AppleShare extension
4- AppleTalk control panel (it’s the Network control panel in earlier Mac
OS versions)
4- Ethernet (built-in) extension
> Open Transport libraries (Open Transport library, AppleTalk library, Internet
library, OpenTptAppleTalkLib, OpenTptlnternetLib, OpenTransportLib)
4- Shared Library Manager (and Shared Library Manager PPC for Power Macs)
4 File Sharing control panel, File Sharing extension. File Sharing library (for
peer-to-peer networks)
4 Printer Share (for sharing non-PostScript printers)
To begin troubleshooting, open the AppleTalk control panel (assuming you plan to
use AppleTalk). Choose the appropriate networking interface — LocalTalk or
Ethernet. (If you have two Ethernet listings, choose the Ethernet built-in option if
you’re using your Mac’s original Ethernet connection or choose the Ethernet slot
option if you’re using an Ethernet expansion card.) If you receive an error at this
point, follow these steps:
1 . Try restarting and choose again.
2. If this doesn’t work, open the Extension Manager and make sure you’re
loading the appropriate drivers for your network interface or card. The
Ethernet (built-in) extension is required for Ethernet on most Macs. You
should also ensure other networking extensions are present. Restart and
choose again.
3. If you have no luck, open the Extension Manager and choose Mac OS All from
the pull-down menu of extension sets. Restart and try to choose the network.
4. If you still can’t select a network architecture, suspect a hardware problem
and move on to the next section.
5. If you can select your networking hardware in the AppleTalk control panel,
move on to the Chooser. Open the Chooser and turn on AppleTalk in the
lower-right corner.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve probably solved the problem. Go ahead and log in to
other computers or servers using the AppleShare icon in the Chooser.
Chapter 11 -f Networking Issues 705
Check hardware again
If you can’t get the AppleTalk control panel to choose the hardware you’d like to
use for networking, and you’re completely sure the Mac is loading all the correct
extensions, it’s possible there’s either a cabling problem or a hardware problem.
If you’re receiving an actual error message about 5 to 10 seconds after trying to
switch to Ethernet — “Could not switch to EtherTalk,” “An error occurred when
attempting to switch”, or something similar — there’s a good chance something is
wrong with your Ethernet network. The seconds-long delay is a result of the Mac OS
polling the Ethernet hardware to learn what sort of network is connected and what
networking zones are available. When the Mac OS returns the error message, it
means the Mac was unable to locate a network.
Here are some possible solutions:
^ You need to activate AppleTalk in the Chooser.
4 There’s a problem with the cabling, ports, or transceivers on your Macs
and/or hub connections.
4 There may be a problem with the System file. See Chapter 33 for information
on performing a System file reinstall.
-f You may have an incompatible third-party hard disk driver.
> Your Ethernet card has a hardware setting that directs Ethernet data to the
lOBaseT port, but you’re using the 10Base2 port (or something similar). If
your card has more than one interface, check its documentation.
If AppleTalk is active and your wiring seems in order, try zapping PRAM to free up
the option and enable you to choose the Ethernet solution. Disconnect and then
reconnect the transceiver or network cable from the computer.
If these approaches don’t work, the delayed error message may be the result of a
problem with the Ethernet hardware itself (either the expansion card or Ethernet
circuitry in your Mac). Take the card or Mac to a service center.
If the error message is immediate, the problem is likely with the Mac OS extensions
that govern that hardware. Try a clean install of the Mac OS and/or a clean
installation of the drivers for your expansion card. If you’re using built-in Ethernet,
try starting up with only Mac extensions to see if there’s a conflict with another
extension or driver. (Chapter 32 covers extension troubleshooting.)
Just so you know it’s okay to give up, here’s a true statement: Ethernet ports can just
go bad. During the writing of this book, the built-in Ethernet port on my main Mac
went dead for a reason that remains inexplicable. I was sitting at the machine when
the port stopped working, and nothing else odd was going on. My solution: I installed
a new (faster, more exciting) Ethernet card, and things are working great.
706 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
If the AppleTalk control panel allows you to select hardware without popping up an
error message, but nothing else changes in the control panel, this may not be
indicative of a problem. Instead, it’s just telling you you’re connected to a network
that has no AppleTalk zones. Or, if the connection is a LocalTalk connection, you
might not be connected to a network at all; LocalTalk connections don’t have to be
active for your Mac to be happy. If you think you’re supposed to be seeing zones,
it’s possible that something is wrong with the cabling at your Mac or that another
driver is interfering with your use of the printer port. Try turning off any serial-port
control panels or applications that use the serial ports, and then restart if the
problem persists. Otherwise, check your cabling carefully and make sure there’s
really a network for you to connect to.
If the problem is you can’t select AppleTalk in the Chooser, this also suggests that
the port is currently being controlled by another program or driver. Clear the port
and try again. You can also restart and zap PRAM to clear the port, and then try
again to choose your networking hardware in the AppleTalk control panel.
The network is down
When the network goes down (that is, when most or all of the network becomes
unavailable to your users) the important question to ask is what networking
architecture is being used? If you’re using LocalTalk or 10Base2 Ethernet, a physical
break in the chain of network connections can cause all or part of the network to
become unavailable. If you’re using lOBaseT hardware, you should start
troubleshooting by taking a look at the Ethernet hub or switch you’re using.
Note that in this section I’m talking about networks that have been working but
suddenly stop working (or partially stop working) for some reason. If you’ve never
gotten a particular Mac to work on the network, consult the previous section,
“Can’t connect a Mac.”
LocalTalk and 10Base2
These daisy-chain-style networks aren’t much fun to troubleshoot in the case of a
downed network. To test for a break in the network, you’ll likely need to walk from
workstation to workstation, checking behind each to make sure the wiring for the
network is still intact. A single bad cable, transceiver, or connection can keep an
entire daisy-chained network from working correctly. You may spend a bit of time
tracking down breaks. (In some cases you’ll notice that a number of Macs
downstream from a problem may be affected, while Macs upstream can still
complete a network connection, or similar circumstances. If something like that is
happening, look at the Macs toward the middle that may be causing the break.)
In general, the network should continue to function even if something is wrong with
one of the Macs in that network. A configuration problem, an issue with AppleTalk,
Chapter 27 -f Networking Issues 707
or even a Mac that’s been shut down generally won’t affect the network. What
you’re looking for are physical breaks or damage to the network.
Here’s how to find them:
1. Check each networking transceiver to ensure that both the incoming and
outgoing connectors are plugged in. Check the quality of the connections and
make sure the connectors are secure and unbroken.
2. Note whether each transceiver is properly connected to its port on the back
of the Mac. (For Ethernet that’s the AAUI port, and for LocalTalk that’s the
printer port. Check that the transceiver is connected to the printer port, not
the modem port or others).
3. Check for proper termination wherever it’s necessary (usually at each end of
the entire network, unless the network is terminated at a bridge or hub).
4 . Check each length of networking cable for breaks, tears, crimps, or anything
else that suggests damage.
Most of the time you’ll find that the network suddenly goes down because a poorly
placed cable gets kicked under the table or a computer is disconnected and/or
moved without sufficient forethought. It’s perfectly all right to move Macs and
printers around on the network, but you’ll need to make sure doing so doesn’t
create a permanent break in the cabling. It’s a good idea to do networking
rearranging after hours, because disconnecting daisy-chained cable causes
interruptions for the entire network.
But there’s another time you may find that the network won’t come back up — after
you’ve worked on it. If you’ve recently added machines and things are working well,
check the following:
4^ Ensure proper connections and proper termination.
4 It may sound crazy, but make sure every computer’s cabling and transceivers
are plugged in, and in the right order. You could accidentally have an extra
length of cable or two that starts at one Mac’s network connection but goes
nowhere. (I’ve seen it happen. All that cable can get confusing.)
4 Check your cable lengths and the number of nodes on the network, as
discussed in Chapter 17. LocalTalk is limited to 32 devices and 1,800 feet of
cabling; PhoneNet lowers that number to 24 devices. 10Base2 can only handle
about 600 feet in total cable length.
4 If you can, test your new transceivers to see if they’re the problem. The best
way to do this is to create a small network of two nodes, and then test each
transceiver along with one you know works properly. That way, you can test
all your transceivers quickly by swapping them into your mini-network.
708 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
lOBaseT
In the case of a lOBaseT network, the entire network being clown is an easy problem
to troubleshoot — there’s something wrong with your hub. In such a network,
problems on one Mac don’t create problems for the entire network, at least not
from a hardware point of view. If a server crashes or a particularly popular Mac
that’s running file sharing shuts down, it can affect everyone on the network. But
that’s not a hardware problem.
Ethernet hubs aren’t terribly friendly for troubleshooting. Depending on how
complicated they are, they usually work or they don’t work. You can try flipping t
he hub’s power switch and moving connections around to see if a particular port
has gone bad, but there’s not much else you can do but have the hub serviced.
(Check your hub or switches manual for diagnostic capabilities that may be built
into the hub.)
At the time of writing, a few Ethernet problems had been identified with the Power
Macintosh G3 series, including issues that were resolved with the Mac OS 8.1 release.
If you are having trouble with lOBaseT Ethernet connections on a Power Macintosh
G3 machine (including trouble with auto-sensing hubs, problems with built-in
Ethernet causing crashes, and other issues), upgrade to the latest OS version by visit-
ing Apple's support site (www. app1 e . com/support) for information on download-
ing an update.
Software Issues
Your Mac network is likely using one or more of three different networking
protocols: AppleTalk, TCP/IP, or MacIPX, the Novell NetWare standard. You may
also be connecting to a Windows NT network using either AppleTalk (which NT can
support in a limited way) or DAVE, an add-on client from Thursby software.
Software configuration is the key to most networking problems; in fact, network
management is the arcana of the computing industry that, in many cases, results in
thousands of dollars being spent to train individuals who make very healthy
salaries keeping corporate and organizational networks up and running. Although
the Mac isn’t as difficult to run as all that, it certainly offers its share of networking
problems.
This section covers Open Transport and its support for AppleTalk and TCP/IP. If
you have a Mac and/or a version of the Mac OS that doesn’t support Open
Transport, the advice in the AppleTalk and TCP/IP sections should still apply, for
the most part. The difference is in the names of the control panel more than
anything else. The AppleTalk control panel is handled by the Network control panel
in older versions; File Sharing is Sharing Setup in previous Mac OSes; and TCP/IP is
MacTCP in earlier implementations.
Chapter 27 -f Networking Issues 709
Evangelista tip: Novell and NT
Having trouble with your Mac's connection to a Novell or NT network? You probably already
know the basics: To connect to a Novell NetWare network, you need the MacIPX software.
If you've already got it (it should come with the NetWare distribution), you'll want to look
into updating it (see Chapter 17 and www. novel 1 .com/ for more info). If you need to
hook up to an NT network, NT does offer AppleTalk sen/ices; however, the experts currently
recommend using Thursby Software's DAVE client software, which is also discussed in
Chapter 17.
If you're using NT for AppleTalk services, you may encounter an interesting problem called
the dancing icon syndrome. This can happen with AppleTalk sen/ers on non-Mac platforms,
such as Linux, Windows NT, and Novell NetWare. (The problem may be limited to Mac OS
8.1 .) When the server volume Is mounted on the Mac client, file icons in the server window
move around, making regular Finder tasks tough. The official Windows NT software fixes
should be available on the Microsoft Web site or via Microsoft's helpline phone support.
For Novell-bound Mac users, Evangelista Yuval Kossovsky has this advice:
"There is a Mac IPX client for NuBus machines and one for PCI-based Macs. 'CLT 511' is the
Novell IPX client for PCI machines. There is also a special update for Mac OS 8.
"Here's a quick connection tip: When the IPX client cannot find the server or NDS tree and
the frame type is correct, change the frame type to an incorrect one and then change it
back. This usually resets the connection. Also, to make a Mac mount a Novell volume at
bootup, make an alias of the volume and put it in the Startup Items folder."
Try http://support.nove! 1 .com/products on the Web for this update and future
updates, including Mac client software.
open Transport
On the newest macs, and any Mac using Mac OS 7.6 or above, Open Transport is
the underlying networking technology. But who cares? If you’ll be using a network
or the Internet, the Open Transport libraries need to be in your System Folder. And,
“Open Transport” is what Apple usually calls updates to the Mac’s networking that
are posted on the Apple Web site periodically for downloading. (The installers are
also included with new Mac OS released.) Otherwise, the name Open Transport
isn’t really all that important.
What’s important is the distinction between Open Transport and so-called classic
networking. Open Transport introduced the new, more efficient control panels —
AppleTalk, File Sharing, Modem, TCP/IP, PPP — to replace the classic networking
approach, which was a hodge-podge of networking solutions. Open Tranport
provides one unified layer of networking, on top of which different protocols —
such as AppleTalk and TCP/IP — can be used to communicate with the outside
world.
710 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
In the early updates to Open Transport, a lot of work was being done to bring it up
to speed, get it compatible with nearly all Mac programs, and get it to work on most
Macs. For the most part, that effort has been successful, and you’ll not come across
too many hassles with Open Transport in later releases. In fact, it’s reliable enough
that Mac OS versions beyond Mac OS 7.6 don’t support classic networking
anymore.
Here are a few of the lingering issues:
> Computers running the Apple IP Gateway and AppleTalk Internet Router
shouldn’t be upgraded to Open Transport. Stick with classic networking
(which also means sticking with an OS prior to Mac OS 7.6).
^ Use the most recent version of PPP dialer software and AOL that you can get
your hands on. Check the Open Transport Read Me file for more information.
Power Macintosh and Performa 5200/5300/6200/6300 models can have a
hardware problem that keeps them from using Open Transport successfully.
The Mac OS 8 or higher installation will test for this problem, as will the
5xxx/6xxx Tester program available from Apple’s Support Web site.
In general, some aging Mac programs that implemented special networking features
— or otherwise “hacked” into MacTCP or AppleTalk in a way not recommended by
Apple — may not work correctly with Open Transport. If you’re using an older
version of Open Transport, it’s certainly recommended that you upgrade to a newer
version of OT, a newer Mac OS, or both. You may experience many other problems;
check the Read Me file that came with your version of Open Transport for details.
AppleTalk
As mentioned in the section “Can’t connect a Mac,” one of the main issues in
troubleshooting AppleTalk is making sure all the appropriate extensions are loaded.
In Mac OS 7.6 and above, those extensions changed somewhat in name (and
function, in some cases) from their previous incarnations, with control panels such
as Network and extensions such as EtherTalk giving way to AppleTalk and Ethernet
(built-in) — names and functions that follow a bit more logically.
These more recent controls for your network give you backward compatibility (you
can still hook up a machine that’s running an older OS version) and a few extra
capabilities. Troubleshooting and getting your network to work properly requires
that these extensions and control panels work in concert toward the end goal of
enabling your Mac to communicate with other computers. Take a look at how this
works and what you can do to test and troubleshoot when the system fails.
Chapter 27 'f Networking Issues 711
Are you missing any important icons? If you can't find the AppleShare icon, AppleTalk
control panel, or the File Sharing options, this is a sure sign you don't have all the
appropriate extensions loaded. Head back to the "Can't connect a Mac" section and
make sure you've got all the right software in your System Folder. This is one of the
most common causes of networking problems, especially when you first start putting
together the network.
How it should work
One of the keys to getting an AppleTalk-based network to work is — surprise! —
choosing the hardware that AppleTalk is going to use. You do that by heading to the
AppleTalk control panel:
1. When you first open the control panel, you may be warned that AppleTalk
isn’t active and that it should be initialized when you close the AppleTalk
control panel. If that sounds like a good idea (and it probably is) click Yes.
The AppleTalk control panel will then appear.
2. In the control panel, choose the hardware you’ll be using for your AppleTalk
network. If it’s Ethernet hardware, choose the entry for the particular
circuitry you’ll be using. Regular Ethernet or Ethernet (built-in) suggests the
port that’s built into most non-Performa Macs. If you have an entry that says
Ethernet slot xx (where xx is a two-letter address), this indicates an Ethernet
expansion card. Select it if that’s what’s wired to the network.
3. At this point you should also choose the correct zone for this Mac if you can.
Zones are set up using network-administration software and server software;
however, even if you use file sharing, you need to choose a particular zone
that will serve as the home for your Mac. (If you just have a couple Macs in
your own office, you probably don’t have any zones to choose from.) Now you
can close the control panel.
4. In the Chooser, find the AppleTalk selector; it should already be turned on. To
set up a network connection, click on the AppleShare icon. Choose the correct
zone if you’re given the option. Now you should be able to choose a server (or
a Mac on the network that’s running file sharing) and log in to it using a name
and password.
That’s the ideal scenario. You’ve already looked at what to do if you can’t select the
network topology you want to work with — that’s what the entire first part of this
chapter is about. And if you can’t manage to select AppleTalk in the Chooser, that
also is covered in the section “Can’t connect a Mac.” But what if you’re having
trouble with file sharing itself? Or what if you need to know more about your
AppleTalk connection? Then, you need to dig a bit deeper.
712 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
Interested in knowing more about your AppleTalk connection? For more advanced
users and administrators, the AppleTalk control panel offers additional information
and options (especially useful if you need to know some specific addressing issues
regarding your network adapter). Choose Edit User Mode from the menu, and then
choose Advanced for a more complicated AppleTalk control panel. You can choose
Administration to set a password and lock the AppleTalk settings — usually a good
idea in a shared lab environment.
File sharing won't work
The basics of file sharing are discussed in Chapter 17, which, among other things,
shows you how to get up and running on a peer-to-peer network of Macs. But if
you’re having trouble getting file sharing to start up, you might feel stuck in the
mud. The symptom: You’re clicking the Start button in the File Sharing control
panel and it won’t start up — you either get an error message that says “File sharing
could not be enabled” or it just never stops trying to start up.
If you have all the proper extensions loaded and AppleTalk is active, receiving this
message suggests a software problem — specifically, a problem with corruption.
You’ll need to dig into your Preferences folder to find the solution.
Note
This is probably a good time to mention that it never hurts to back up the Users and
Groups preferences file or the File Sharing folder in the Preferences folder. If you are
forced to delete any of these files, replacing them from a clean backup is much eas-
ier than rebuilding them from scratch.
Here are some things to try:
4 Delete the User and Groups preferences file in the Preferences folder located in
the System Folder. (You can also just drag it to the desktop as a preliminary
measure.) Try to start up file sharing again.
♦ Drag the File Sharing folder from the Preferences folder to the desktop. Try file
sharing cigain. If it works this time, you can throw away the folder.
4 * Delete AppleShare PDS. This invisible file is in the main directory of your hard
drive, and it’s likely corrupted if you’re having trouble getting file sharing to
start and you’ve already tried the other two files. Unfortunately, you’ll need to
make the file visible first, and then delete it. (See the sidebar “ResEdit: Making
invisible files visible.”) Once you’ve done that, you can try starting up file
sharing again.
4 Check for extension conflicts. You may be having a conflict between the File
Sharing extension and other extensions in your system. Try restarting your
Mac with the Mac OS All extensions option selected. If file sharing now works,
you’ve got a conflict with a non-Mac OS extension. Check Chapter 32 for
troubleshooting tips.
Chapter 27 -f Networking Issues 713
> Run Disk First Aid. A bad block or other trouble with the desktop database can
hinder file sharing. You should also rebuild the Desktop file.
4- Zap PRAM. You may want to delete all these files, then immediately restart
and Zap PRAM. Check your AppleTalk settings in the AppleTalk control panel,
then start up file sharing again. It should work this time.
You should also make sure you have some free RAM and hard-drive space — file
sharing needs a bit of both (about 800K of RAM and 1MB of hard drive space) to
start up properly.
Apple's Tech Info Library also recommends that you reinstall the networking software
and/or the Mac OS if you're experiencing problems that can't seem to be fixed or
after having used a third-party file sharing program.
File sharing security
Although file sharing security isn’t strictly troubleshooting, I would like to mention
it quickly — after all, trouble may crop up because you’re not being careful enough
when securing your Macs.
ResEdit: Making invisible files visible
You need to be fairly comfortable with your Mac skills before you use ResEdit, which is a
low-level Macintosh programming tool designed to mess files up beyond recognition. (At
least, that's what the program does In the wrong hands.) In the right hands, you can quickly
use it to find and de-cloak that pesky AppleShare PDS file.
Find ResEdit online, in Apple's FTP directories (www.apple.com/support/) Start ResEdit.
Close the File window that opens and select File Get File/Folder Info. Now, find the
AppleShare PDS file on the main level of your Mac's startup hard drive. Highlight
AppleShare PDS and click Get Info.
This brings up a dialog box that tells you a lot of interesting stuff about Mac files, but it lets
you change some of that stuff, too. Notice toward the bottom of the window that this file
has a check next to the word Invisible; click once to uncheck that option. Click the close box
on the window. When asked if you want to save info before closing, choose Yes.
Now the file should be visible. Quit ResEdit, and then head over to your Mac's hard drive.
Open it and find the AppleShare PDS file. Drag it to the Trash and begin testing file sharing
again.
~J Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
On the
CD-^
The bottom line to security Is this: Be careful with your Sharing permissions,
especially if your LAN also has an Internet connection. (Permissions are set in the
Sharing control panel, and they determine what capabilities are granted to certain
users or groups of users. For instance, you can decide whether or not a user has
the authority to save files in a particular folder, or if that user is only allowed to
read files in the folder.) It's best to make a habit of setting the permissions so that
every person you want to have access to your Mac has to provide a password and
have an account, and gets access only to specific parts of your drive. Even a well-
meaning visitor can trash an important document or application. Don't give them
the opportunity.
If youTe a system administrator, you can check the status of your Mac LAN's security using
a shareware program, found on the included CD-ROM, called Network Security Guard
from MR Mac (www .mrmac . com/). The program will check your connected Macs and
generate reports on Macs that have file sharing enabled, those that allow guest access,
those that have the user name as password (or other obvious passwords that you can tell
it to search for), and similar reports. This is invaluable information if you're trying to
manage a larger group of Macs and need to (kindly) suggest to users that they maintain
security on the network.
So how do you set permissions? By using the Sharing command. Choose a hard
drive on which to impose a permissions lockout, and then choose File O Sharing
from that Mac's menu bar. In the resulting dialog box, you can choose which users
or groups you want to give permissions to and which permissions they get — read,
write, both, or none. If you have more than one user who needs a special
permission set, that's when you'll head to Users and Groups on this Mac and create
a new group. Note that you can then either copy those permissions to all enclosed
folders or you can go to each Individual folder and set permissions.
It's important, as the system administrator or “Mac person” in your office, that you
avoid allowing people to log in as guests and with simple passwords. Mac networks
can be very secure, in theory, even on the Internet with a firewall — as long as users
are vigilant about that security. If you have a smaller office where you can gather
everyone together and chat about things, you might mention this, and train them to
keep their Macs secure.
Obviously, the best security comes — especially In larger offices — from using only
an AppleShare (or NetWare/Windows NT) server solution for connectivity instead
of allowing the Macs to access file sharing. File sharing is really about empowering
individual Macs to control their own security and networking; in a larger office,
though, that isn’t necessarily practical or wise. It’s better to run a server computer
and control how everyone logs in and accesses shared resources.
In fact, you can disable file sharing on your workgroup's Macs, if necessary, by
unchecking the File Sharing control panel, File Sharing extension, and File Sharing
shared library in the Mac’s Extensions Manager or otherwise moving the File
Sharing system files to their respective Extensions (Disabled) and Control Panels
(Disabled) folders in the System Folder. This will keep any users from turning on file
chapter 27 ^ Networking Issues 715
sharing and compromising the security of their network (or, at least, their Macs) to
outsiders.
By the way, while you’re taking inventory of the file sharing settings on your
networked Macs, it’s a good idea to take a look at the Web Sharing control panel as
well. If your network is hooked up to the Internet, it’s possible that your Mac users
are broadcasting a special Web directory (called Web Pages) to anyone with a Web
browser. This might not be a problem, unless they’ve set weird permissions for the
folder or the folder holds your top secret plans for a better mousetrap. In any case,
check for security holes and disable the control panel if it makes you
uncomfortable.
Do you administer a network of file sharing Macs? It's a good idea to update a single
machine's Users and Groups (in the preferences folder) whenever you add a new
user, and then distribute that data file to each Mac on the network. (This keeps things
nice and uniform.) You should also back up that master Users and Groups data file so
you can restore any Mac's corrupt Users and Groups data without being forced to
enter the data manually.
sharing trouble
Once you get file sharing up and running, you could still run into the occasional
snag. A couple of these are well known:
4 * Crashing. Corruption in a preferences file or an extensions conflict. Start up
with Mac OS All extensions enabled and try to reproduce the file sharing
crash. If you can’t, troubleshoot for an extensions conflict. If you can get the
Mac to crash, try deleting the preferences files as outlined in the previous
section.
> Can't unmount a volume. Often with removable media, you’ll get a message
that says you can’t eject the cartridge of a disk because it’s being shared; file
sharing has gotten confused and believes the media is in use. (This was
supposedly fixed in Mac OS 7.5.1.) If the media really isn’t in use (ask around
among your networked friends or colleagues), you can disable file sharing,
eject the disk, and re-enable file sharing. In Mac OS 7.5 and earlier, you may
find that restarting the Mac is the only way to get the disk ejected.
4 - Can't see the whole remote disk. File sharing (through Mac OS version 8.1) is
limited to sharing 4GB volumes. To see an entire volume of over 4GB across
the network, you should partition the drive into chunks of 4GB or smaller.
4 ^ Can't log onto a file sharing Mac. Make sure file sharing is enabled on the Mac.
If you can access the Mac but it won’t accept your user ID, make sure that
Mac has included you as part of its Users and Groups entries. (If you’ve had to
troubleshoot by deleting preference files, you may need to reconstruct the
Users and Groups profiles.) If you do exist in the Users and Groups data and
everything else seems to work, that Users and Groups file may be corrupt.
Drag it to the desktop, restart file sharing on that Mac, and create another
user profile. If you can log in, you’ll need to delete the Users and Groups data
file and redefine them for that Mac.
716 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
TCP/IP
Problems with TCP/IP itself are pretty rare; you’ll have more trouble with your PPP
dialer if you’re using one to connect to the Internet. For the most part, PPP
problems are simply modem problems, so you should consult Chapter 26 for hints
on getting connected to your ISP.
The TCP/IP control panel doesn’t cause too much trouble, as long as all your Open
Transport networking extensions are in place and you’ve got your TCP/IP addresses
and settings entered correctly. You should get these numbers directly from your
network administrator or ISP; make sure you enter them exactly as they’re
supposed to be entered. Easily the most common TCP/IP problem is a transposed
IP address.
The other big problem with TCP/IP is its ability to load and unload on demand —
this usually works, but not always. If your Mac signs itself on at times (or can’t
seem to sign on at all other times), this option may be to blame. To change it, you’ll
need to dig into the TCP/IP control panel:
1. With the TCP/IP control panel open, choose Edit ^ User Mode from the
menu bar.
2. Choose Advanced and click OK.
3. Click the Option button that now appears in the TCP/IP control panel.
4. In the TCP/IP Options dialog box, change the way that TCP/IP will now load.
Depending on how your user settings are set, you may already see the Options
button in the TCP/IP control panel; in that case, you just need to worry about steps
3 and 4.
Here are some problem symptoms and potential cures:
> Internet connection not working. This problem is often more specific (as with
the other bullets in this section), so if you’re having trouble with your TCP/IP
connection, you should narrow it down a bit first. If the PPP connection was
successful, the problem is probably with the TCP/IP control panel. Can you do
anything on the Internet? Can you check your e-mail or get Usenet newgroups?
If you can do that but can’t surf the Web, your problem is probably with the
DNS server entries. If you can surf the Web but can’t get e-mail, you may have
set up your e-mail server and/or news server settings incorrectly in the
Internet Config or Internet Setup Assistant.
4 TCP/IP not loading. If you’re using an older Internet program, and it’s the first
Internet program you’ve run, it’s possible that TCP/IP is not loading on
demand. To get around this problem, choose the Options button in the TCP/IP
control panel and uncheck the option Load only when needed. You should
also check the Options window to make sure TCP/IP is set to Active.
Chapter 27 -f Networking Issues 717
^ DNS can't be found. A Web browser will report it can’t find the domain name
server (and, thus, figure out how to find a Web site) for one of two reasons:
either the Mac isn’t connected to the Internet or the DNS addresses are
wrong. (The DNS computers could also be down, so call your ISP if trouble
persists.) If your PPP connection seems to be working, or if your hub is
flashing its lights in response to a solid Internet connection, the problem is
most likely with the IP addresses you’ve entered in the TCP/IP control panel
for your DNS computers. Check them again and correct them.
4 “ Can't get e-mail and/or Usenet news. You need to set the correct e-mail and
news server addresses in Internet Config or the Internet Setup Assistant. Be
aware that not all mail and news programs use the Internet Config settings, so
you may have to individually set the addresses in your e-mail and/or news
programs (see Figure 27-1).
Figure 27-1: You can run the
Internet Setup Assistant at any
time to change the default mail
and news servers for your Mac.
4 * Internet connection dials itself You may find that your PPP dialer will attempt
to log onto the Internet as the Mac starts up or during the time that the Mac is
running, even if an Internet application is running. (If a Web browser or e-mail
program is running, suspect it first; look for a self-refreshing Web page or a
scheduled e-mail check.) In this case, go to the TCP/IP Options window and
check the option Load only when needed. TCP/IP may be trying to constantly
maintain an Internet connection. (This problem can also be attributed to older
versions of MacPPP and FreePPP, two popular Internet dialers. For some
reason, these earlier versions had a bug that caused them to dial out for no
reason every few hours. If you suspect your PPP dialer, upgrade it.)
Loading TCP/IP only when needed is a good idea if you use a dial-up connection or
you have very little RAM in your system, but it should generally be kept on for
direct (Ethernet-based) connections to the Internet. TCP/IP may also need to be on
all the time if you use a special bridge or other device to get Internet access for
your local area network.
718 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Summary
> Troubleshooting a network requires a close look at the hardware and cabling,
followed by software troubleshooting, and then an even closer look at the
hardware. Many networking problems are due to a bad wire or a bad
connection, with AppleTalk and Chooser problems a close second. Only after
exhausting these options should you even wonder if there might be something
wrong with your networking ports.
> 10Base2 and LocalTalk networks often go down for very little reason: Because
every computer connection is required to keep the network running happily,
any problems with the wiring or transceivers on any of the machines can
bring the network crashing down. In these cases, it pays to be organized.
lOBaseT networks are easier; if they go down, blame it on the hub.
-f Open Transport and AppleTalk have their own little incompatibilities, but
for the most part the trouble is in configuration. AppleTalk especially can be
confusing, and — if it gets used a lot — it can kick back the occasional error.
Many AppleTalk problems can be attributed to corrupt files. Fortunately,
most of these problems are also easy to fix.
♦ TCP/IP shouldn’t give you much trouble except that you need to be
meticulous when entering IP addresses and other values. Get those right
and only one or two potential problems will pop up to give you Internet
headaches.
Gaming,
Multimedia, and
DOS Issues
I t’s no fun to spend hard-earned money and a little elbow
grease installing a state-of-the-art video card, only to be
less than overwhelmed by the speed increase you witness.
There can be a couple of reasons a video accelerator might fail
to speed things up, and most of them are configuration issues
that can be easily solved.
Speaking of configuration, getting game controllers — such as
high-end joysticks and gamepads — to work correctly can be a
study in arcana. If there’s anywhere the Mac has let users
down in the past, it’s here, with the ADB port being used as a
poor excuse for a gaming port. Fortunately, that’s changing.
You’ll just need to make sure you have the latest drivers and
software.
On the DOS emulation front, you’ve probably got two
concerns: running Windows in its full splendor, and bleeding
every last ounce of performance out of your emulation
solution. Now, I’m sure not going to help you troubleshoot
Windows; plenty of books much bigger than this one are
devoted to that task. But you will explore, in this chapter,
some possible solutions for an emulator that’s giving you a
little grief or a Windows solution that could use just a bit more
power.
In This Chapter
Does your
accelerator
accelerate?
QuickDraw 3D and
Voodoo problems
Problems with game
controllers
DOS emulation:
troubleshoot the
cards
Trouble with software
emulators
4 - 4 ^ ♦
720 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
3D and Acceleration
You buy the card, get it home, follow all the instructions in Chapter 18, and you
perforin, in your own humble estimation, a fabulous job of it. Then you fire up
your Mac and nothing spectacular seems to happen. There’s two possible reasons
for this:
4- Nothing spectacular is supposed to happen. This is especially true if the card
you’ve bought is an add-on 3D card. Voodoo cards and some QuickDraw 3D
RAVE accelerators only kick in when they’re being used with a program —
often a game or multimedia title — designed to be accelerated. In general,
you’ll get regular performance with these cards with other programs.
4^ The configuration is wrong. For successful 3D acceleration, the card’s software
components and extensions should be loaded and running with the Mac OS.
In addition, you need an application or title that’s designed to be accelerated
in the first place. If you’re working with the latter, then the former may be
causing your problems; you need to install and use the correct extensions for
your 3D hardware.
Unless you encounter a vendor-specific defect, you’re unlikely to have many
problems beyond configuration. However, you need to have all the necessary
components present for the card to work, and you need the card to be properly
installed. Here are some steps for fixing problems with your 3-D card:
1. If you suspect you’re having 3D problems, you can isolate those problems and
get to the root of the issue by first determining which 3D technology you’re
trying to use.
2. Move on to the software specific to that 3D technology. Both QuickDraw 3D
and 3Dfx Voodoo technologies require specific system extensions. Your card
may also require special drivers.
3. If neither of those get the card to kick in, suspect a conflict between those
extensions or a problem with the application you’re trying to use.
4. Finally, if troubleshooting the extensions or application doesn’t solve your
problem, you can suspect that it’s a hardware issue.
One way to solve 3D acceleration problems is to rerun the installation program that
came with the card. This should install any drivers for the card that are missing and
may be necessary to configure the card. The one thing to watch out for, though, is
the installation’s propensity to overwrite upgrades to your Mac OS; don’t let it
overwrite QuickDraw 3D, QuickTime, or similar technologies if you know that your
current versions of those extensions are newer.
Chapter 28 > Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 721
If your Mac OS extensions are newer than the 3-D card’s versions, you might want
to consult the accelerator card manufacturer’s Web site to see if it has released an
update to the installer. The company may also have specific recommendations
regarding the product’s interaction with your newer release of Mac technology or
the Mac OS. Often a manufacturer will upgrade its installation when a new version
of the QuickDraw 3D technology is made available by Apple, and you can download
that upgrade (or read about the work-around) from the manufacturer’s Web site.
QuickDraw 3D
Because QuickDraw 3D is written by Apple and supported from within the Mac OS,
it’s very well integrated for a number of tasks. For instance, you can accelerate
QuickDraw 3D graphics within a window; with Voodoo 3D, you have to be viewing
the acceleration full screen, one of the main reasons that Voodoo acceleration is
pretty much limited to the arena of games.
But with that integration comes a certain amount of confusion. Sometimes it’s
tough to tell exactly which extensions you need to have active for 3-D acceleration
to work. Remember, QuickDraw 3D is the required technology for creating the 3D
objects and manipulating them in the Mac OS — QuickDraw 3D RAVE is the
acceleration technology that makes the 3D graphics render more quickly. So, you
need both technologies present to get QuickDraw 3D-accelerated graphics cards
and applications to work together correctly.
Loading trouble
To begin, check to make sure all the required QuickDraw 3D extensions appear in
the Extensions folder on your Mac (or that they’re checked to load in the
Extensions Manager). Those extensions are as follows:
^ QuickDraw 3D
> QuickDraw 3D IR
^ QuickDraw 3D RAVE
^ QuickDraw 3D Viewer
If you get a message that says “QuickDraw 3D could not be found,” that’s a good
indication you’re missing one or more of the preceding extensions. If they are
present (and the Mac has been restarted), it’s possible that you’re receiving the
message because you’re running low on application memory. Try closing other
applications and restarting the Mac, and then run the QuickDraw-enabled
application again (with no other applications loaded).
If you still have trouble, you may simply not have enough RAM to run QuickDraw
3D and the application. If you feel you have plenty of RAM, increase the problem
application’s allocated RAM slightly (select the application’s icon and choose File»^>
Get Info). If all else fails, try a clean install of the Mac OS in case the extensions (or
some other aspect of the Mac OS) have become corrupted.
722 Part III 4^ Tlroubieshoot and Repair
These days, QuickDraw 3D is generally installed along with the QuickTime distribu-
tion, so if you can't find an option to help you reinstall QuickDraw 3D, look to the
QuickTime Installer. Also, note that QuickDraw 3D is a PowerPC-only technology that
can require quite a bit of RAM, so this won't work with older Macs.
Acceleration issues
Aside from having all the QuickDraw extensions loaded, including QuickDraw 3D
RAVE, the most important part of using QuickDraw 3D RAVE acceleration is running
a program — usually a game — that supports RAVE. You’ll find that not all of them
do, and games written specifically for the Voodoo chipset from 3Dfx aren’t
necessarily designed to be accelerated by a QuickDraw 3D accelerator card. (Some
cards do both types of 3D acceleration, and some games do both, too.)
It’s always a good idea to check the game publisher’s Web site to see if it has
updated the game to support RAVE drivers or created a patch for the game that
includes the support. In the computer gaming world, games get released as soon
as they possibly can — sometimes with other support files, patches, and upgrades
being released weeks later through the mail or via a Web site. Check often if it
seems acceleration isn’t working well or if acceleration isn’t yet present in
the game.
If you’re using a 3D card for higher-end multimedia or design 3D acceleration, the
main concern is making sure you’re loading the correct extensions for your video
card (see Figure 28-1), so study the card’s manual carefully. You’ll also want to
check your Extensions folder for any extension conflicts; Apple has its own graphic
accelerator extensions that may interfere with the operation of your card, as may
extensions left over from a previous video card. Also check the video card
manufacturer’s Web site for updates to the extensions you currently have installed.
In a number of cases, built-in 3D acceleration only works at 16-bit color depths
(thousands of colors), not 8-bit (256 colors) or 24-bit (millions of colors). Check
your documentation regarding your particular Mac model — this is certainly true of
the Power Macintosh 5500/6500 series of Macs, the 20th Anniversary Mac, and
many Power Computing models that featured ATI-based 3D acceleration.
Figure 28-1 : The ATI chipset in a
Power Computing PowerCenter Pro
comes with five files for the Extensions
folder.
Chapter 28 4 Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 723
Don't forget that some game drawing functions require Game Sprockets as well as
the appropriate acceleration extensions. See the Game Sprockets discussion later in
this chapter.
Voodoo
Overall, Voodoo acceleration is simpler than QuickDraw 3D RAVE, but it does still
require attention to the extensions loaded on your machine. You’ll also want to
make sure your card and monitor are configured correctly.
If the Voodoo accelerator card you’re using is a 3-D card only, it needs to be
connected to the existing 2D card in your Mac. To do that, you generally attach a
cable to the 2D card’s RGB (DB15) port, and connect the cable to the video-in port
on the Voodoo card. From there, you hook a VGA (HD 15) monitor cable into the
Voodoo card, although you may need an adapter if you’re using an Apple monitor.
Check these cables for proper configuration if you’re having trouble getting either
the card or your monitor to work after installation.
Voodoo accelerators will generally only support multisync monitors (because they
need to resync to support full-screen 3D), and they require PCI-based Power
Macintosh computers. Voodoo cards can also add quite a bit to the RAM
requirements of your favorite games, usually needing 32MB of RAM or more for
successful game play.
QuickDraw 3D: When things slow down
Apple's Tech Info Library contains a tech note that was originally part of the Power
Computing tech database, which Apple incorporated into its own support Web site when
Power Computing sold its assets to Apple. The note discusses the built-in ATI RAGE II
chipset on the Power Computing machine, although the chipset is actually a popular add-
on in many Macs.
The note discusses problems that occur when video memory gets low, which manifest
themselves with 3D objects that slowly begin to lose their texture and detail as QuickDraw
allows these things to drop out in the interest of preserving VRAM. This effect is especially
noticeable if you're increasing the window size while viewing a complex 3D object; it's less
likely to be noticeable while playing games. Eventually, the card will run out of memory and
the QuickDraw functions will revert back to software-only, resulting in slower performance.
The answer: Get more VRAM or render less complex objects.
724 Part 1114* Troubleshoot and Repair
You’ll also have to have the correct software installed. QuickDraw 3D and
QuickDraw 3D RAVE are probably still required, as may be the DrawSprocket from
Apple’s Game Sprockets. (In fact, some Voodoo accelerators work as QuickDraw 3D
RAVE accelerators, too, but sometimes only in full-screen modes.)
In addition to the above, your 3Dfx card will likely require a few additional drivers:
4 3Dfx RAVE driver extension
4 3Dfx shared library file
4 Graphics library file
All of these will need to be placed in the Extensions folder. Check your
documentation for the exact name and other required extensions.
Your Voodoo card will also require full-screen games specifically written to take
advantage of Voodoo (or QuickDraw 3D RAVE, in some cases) acceleration. This
means games that tout that they’re Voodoo-, 3Dfx- or Glide-compatible, all of which
refer to pretty much the same thing. (The Glide API is a programmer’s interface for
writing accelerated 3D routines.)
Troubleshooting
If you have trouble with a pass-through style add-on Voodoo accelerator, your
problems are likely to revolve around the cables and adapters you need to get the
card working. If you install the card and immediately have trouble, check the cables
and adapters first. Some of these troubleshooting hints are more applicable to one
type of accelerator over the other, but you may find any of them useful for a
particular problem.
Here are some common issues:
4 Cable doesn't fit on a pass-through Voodoo system. Make sure you’ve attached
the RGB port (DB15) to the 2D video card. Some video cards feature both RGB
and VGA (HD 15) ports, but the cable is designed for one RGB and one VGA
port. So, use RGB on the Mac’s video and use VGA on the Voodoo card’s
video-in port.
4 Monitor is blank on a Voodoo system. Check the pass-though cable between
your 2D and Voodoo card. Also check the connection from the Voodoo card to
your monitor. If you’ve installed an adapter for the monitor’s connection to
the Voodoo card, test that adapter as well. (If you can, plug it into another
VGA port for testing with your monitor.) Test for trouble with the Voodoo card
by reinstalling the monitor on the 2-D card, and then testing to see if the
original video card is putting out a signal and that the monitor works.
chapter 28 -f Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 725
> Works fine until you load a game, and then goes blank using a Voodoo card.
Wait a few moments to make sure the game isn’t just slow. Make sure the
game supports either QuickDraw 3D RAVE or Voodoo acceleration. If not,
try restarting with extensions off (hold down the Shift key during startup)
and running the game again. You may have a conflict between video drivers,
especially if you have both the Voodoo drivers and another series of 3D
drivers loaded on the same system. (Techworks, maker of the Power3D card,
identifies a conflict with some ATI 3D drivers.)
^ The screen goes blank using any accelerator. If the light on your monitor is
orange instead of green, the monitor may have gone to sleep. Try disabling
monitor sleep in the Energy Saver control panel. (You may need to restart.)
> Sound stutters during gameplay with any accelerator. There’s an identified
problem with many 3D acceleration cards and the Catalyst motherboard used
in Power Macintosh 7200 machine and many of the Mac done systems. Look
for driver updates from the card manufacturer.
^ Things don*t look any different. Check for game settings cind/or special
drivers for the game itself, which must support the 3D acceleration
technology you’re using. You may need to use a different version of the
game program that’s specifically enabled for your type of 3-D acceleration.
You may also need a patch or update program for the game that’s been
relecised on the game publisher’s Web site.
> Things are working, but dark. Some accelerators have trouble with managing
monitor gamma, resulting in a dark screen. Look for brightness settings in the
game’s preference settings or turn the brightness up on your monitor.
If it feels like the problem doesn’t fall in any of these categories, you can try
zapping PRAM and reinstalling the software drivers for the card. You should also
power your Mac all the way down, test that all video cables are securely installed,
and start the machine back up to make sure it is properly sensing the video
adapters and cables. You can also try installing the card in a different PCI slot;
accelerator cards and some video cards can be sensitive to which slot they’re
installed in. And, while you’re inside the Mac, make sure you press the
motherboard reset button if one is present.
Sprockets and Controllers
If you’re having trouble with a game controller, you probably either have an ADB
conflict or overload, or your software isn’t configured correctly. To test for an
ADB-related problem, see Chapter 24.
726 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
There are three basic ways to configure game controllers on the Macintosh:
4 Mouse-substitute. Using an application or control panel for the settings, the
game controller is calibrated so that it works effectively when the mouse
option is chosen in the game being played.
4 Game-based. Individual games (especially games that are a few years old) can
come with drivers designed for the more popular models of joystick or
controller. These games will often support basic controls on all joysticks,
along with support for specialized controllers, such as flight yokes and
throttle systems.
4 Sprockets-based. Each device you have gets an Input Sprocket driver that’s
stored in the Extensions folder, kind of like the drivers for fax modems and
printers that eventually show up in the Chooser (except that sprocket drivers
don’t show up in the Chooser — they show up in a standard interface that can
be written into Mac games). You need to have the sprocket for your particular
controller in the Extensions folder if you’re going to effectively use a game
that works with Sprockets (see Figure 28-2).
Figure 28-2: The Input Sprocket drivers. Some games or
other installations will add a whole slew of them to your
System folder.
So, configuration problems you run into will probably have to do with missing
drivers or controller descriptions necessary for each type of game. If your game's
support for controllers is mouse-based, there’s really only so much you can do —
usually you’ll be able to configure certain settings in a control panel, or you can
physically reconfigure the joystick using dials and settings while you’re testing the
game itself. You may also be able to program the game controller to do certain
things (represent key presses, for example) when you click a particular button. For
instance, the CH Products Gamepad control panel enables you to assign tasks to
each programmable l)utton (see Figure 28-T).
Chapter 28 4 Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 727
Figure 28-3: The Gamepad control
panel gives you control over the
function of each button.
You may find that certain games already have built-in configurations for the
controller you’re trying to use. in which case you may need to disable the control
panel that governs that controller and/or configure the controller from within the
game. Usually, the more popular the game and the controller, the more likely it is
you can configure the controller from directly inside the game.
The best all-around solution is a controller that takes advantage of Game Sprockets.
In this case, you simply need to make sure the Input Sprocket driver for your
particular controller appears in the Extensions folder on your Mac. If you don’t
have an Input Sprocket driver, check your installation disks and the manufacturer’s
Web site. You may also find the driver on the installation media for the game in
question. Game Sprockets is still gaining popularity, so, for a time at least, the entire
distribution tends to come with every game that supports the Sprockets. Check the
CD for a driver that works with your joystick.
If you can’t find a driver — either a game-based driver or a Sprocket driver —
check your controller’s manual for substitutes. Sometimes a particular controller
is designed to emulate a more popular product by the same company or a well-
known controller from another company in the industry.
PC Compatibility
PC compatibility means three things: file exchange, expansion cards, and emulation
softw2U’e. You want your Mac to be capable of mounting PC disks and reading their
contents, you may want to run Windows applications using an add-in card, and you
may also be interested in getting DOS and Windows applications running using a
software emulator on your high-end PowerPC-based Mac.
As far as floppy and file-format compatibility, most of the problems you encounter
will be issues with configuration, although you’ll run across the occasional
preferences file that needs a stern talking to.
728 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Input device conflicts: Drivers and control panels
The Advanced Gravis Frequently Asked Questions site (www.grav1s.com) addresses a
couple of interesting problems that can affect how well your game controller integrates into
your system.
The first of these is a specific issue with the extension that Gravis uses for some of their Mac
devices, called the Firebird GA extension. (You should examine your System folder to see if
your game controller has a similar extension.) The extension works in the background,
polling the ADB bus, preventing the Energy Saver control panel from putting the Mac to
sleep and conserve energy. The solution is to disable the extension and load each game set
manually.
Another problem that some game controllers can have is a conflict with mouse-manage-
ment software like Kensington Mouseworks, which can try to control every device on the
ADB bus. If you have trouble getting an input device to work correctly and you're using an
advanced mouse or trackball, check the mouse software for controls for excluding certain
ADB addresses or devices. (See Chapter 24 for more information on the Mouseworks con-
trol panel.)
The PC Compatibility Cards from Apple, Reply, Orange Micro, and Radius introduce
a disturbing variable into the configuration and troubleshooting of a Macintosh —
DOS and Windows. With these two somewhere near your system, you’ll encounter a
few problems that are way, way outside the scope of this text.
Instead, in this section weTl focus on only two compatibility issues: Getting an Intel-
compatible chip to work with the Mac’s components and getting Windows and the
Mac OS to coexist peacefully enough that they can share peripherals and swap
data. These are no small tasks, but they’re handled surprisingly well by the PC
Setup control panel that ships with many of these cards.
If you’re not using one of the cards, but you are using a powerful Power Macintosh,
you may be more interested in putting SoftWindows or VirtualPC to use in running
Windows and DOS applications. If this is the case, a few unique issues should be
addressed in the configuration and troubleshooting of these applications, as well.
Floppies and files
To mount a DOS-formatted disk or removable media cartridge, your Mac needs to
be armed with the appropriate drivers for the device and the PC Exchange control
panel, a Mac OS add-on that’s responsible for most of the cross-platform disk
handling tasks. So, if you’re having trouble with a DOS-formatted disk — especially if
youT'e getting a message that says “Disk is unreadable” or “Is not a Macintosh disk”
— check to make sure the PC Exchange control panel is being properly loaded at
startup. If it doesn’t appear in the Control Panels menu under the Apple menu,
check the Extensions Manager to make sure PC Exchange is enabled.
Chapter 28 -f Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 729
Note I get so used to being able to use DOS-formatted disks that I'm sometimes surprised
it doesn't work when I restart with extensions off by holding down the Shift key as the
Mac starts up. If you stick a PC disk in when the PC Exchange control panel hasn't
been loaded, the Mac can't read the disk. The Finder then tries to entice you into for-
matting the disk, which will erase all the data on the disk. Don't do it. Restart so that
the PC Exchange extension can load.
PC Exchange won’t work with Macs that don’t include an Apple SuperDrive (the
Mac Plus and before, along with early releases of the Mac SE and the Mac II ) and
will only work with properly formatted 720K and 1.44MB DOS floppy disks, ^n my
experience, you’ll have more luck with 1.44MB floppies.) Apple warns that you
shouldn’t try to verify or fix a DOS floppy with a Macintosh disk doctor program.
Take the disk to a DOS or Windows machine and run a disk doctor program there,
instead.
Trouble with long filenames and removable media
If you’re having a problem seeing the Windows 95 long filenames associated with
files on a DOS-formatted floppy, you need to make sure you’ve upgraded to PC
Exchange 2.2 or higher (included with the Mac OS 8.1 upgrade). This is also true if
you’re having trouble with an Iomega Zip cartridge, which is better supported with
the 2.2 version.
Depending on the version of PC Exchange you have, the control panel has the built-
in ability to mount many different types of DOS-formatted media, including many
removable drives and cartridge drives. You should begin by inserting the media and
seeing if it appears on the desktop. Iomega Zip and .laz drives, for instance, support
the PC Exchange control panel natively, enabling DOS-formatted Zip and Jaz
cartridges to appear on the desktop seamlessly.
You may need to mount other removable drives manually. To do this:
1. Open the PC Exchange control panel and click the Options button.
2. Wait for the Mac to locate any recognized SCSI devices that are PC formatted.
3. Choose the drive. It should then mount on the desktop. Close the control
panel.
Your removable drive may not appear for two reasons. First, it may have its own
update that will enable it to work more closely with the PC Exchange control panel —
look for updated drivers on the manufacturer’s Web site. Second, it might not work
correctly because PC Exchange is comparing the drive against an internal list of
drives it supports. If PC Exchange doesn’t support the drive or media you’re trying to
mount, you’ll need to upgrade PC Exchange or contact the manufacturer to see if a
workaround is available.
730 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
Can't see more than 1GB
PC Exchange has a limitation, even in recent versions: It doesn’t see DOS-formatted
media that’s over 1GB in size if it’s in the regular FAT (File Allocation Table) format
of pre-Windows 95 volumes. In Windows 95 OSR 2 (OEM Service Release #2) and in
Windows 98, the underlying file system has been upgraded to FAT32, which, like
HFS Plus for Macs, supports larger drives and smaller allocation blocks. Using PC
Exchange 2.2 or higher, you can see these drives.
Otherwise, the solution is to repartition the PC media so that only 1GB is formatted
to the regular FAT specification at once.
Freezes and crashes
If your Mac freezes or crashes when trying to work with a DOS-formatted floppy,
suspect an extension conflict. It’s possible the PC Exchange extension is in
conflict with another extension on your system. You can try restarting with only
the Mac OS extensions active, or troubleshoot the extension conflict as discussed
in Chapter 32.
Symptoms of a conflict also include the Mac not being able to read a DOS floppy
that you know is correctly formatted, the Mac crashing while mounting the disk, or
the Mac crashing while reading the disk.
Loading PC files
If you’re trying to load a PC document into a Macintosh program, PC Exchange will
attempt to help you with that as well. It does so by using a table of filename
extensions (the three letters in the DOS filename that are used to identify the type
of document) that corresponds to a Macintosh program designed to open that file.
Many Macintosh programs are able to directly open or import files created in their
Windows counterparts, or even in competing Windows applications.
If you double-click a PC file and a window appears asking you which application
should be used to load the file, pick the appropriate application from the list
provided.
If you double-click a PC file, and it doesn’t give you a window of choices — but it
also doesn’t load in the correct application — you should head to the PC Exchange
control panel to change the association. Open the control panel and select that file
name extension’s entry (for instance, .DOC for Microsoft Word for Windows files).
Now, click the Change button to change the association (using a standard Open
dialog box) to another Mac application. Find the Mac application in the dialog box
and click OK.
If the file attempts to load in the correct application but fails, this may be a sign
that the application isn’t equipped to deal with this particular type of document —
at least, not directly. The file may need to be translated. For that, you’ll want to
launch the application, choose File O Open, and attempt to open the DOS document
from the Open dialog window.
Chapter 28 > Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 731
Why must you use the File»C> Open command? Because the application now has
more complete control over the process. Using the Open command from within the
program causes the program to attempt to import a foreign file format. In fact, in
some programs you can choose the type of file directly in the Open dialog box; if
it’s a WordPerfect for Windows document, for instance, you can pull down the File
Type (or similar) menu and choose the WordPerfect for Windows entry. Now the
application knows how to translate the DOS/Windows document.
If the document still won’t open, and you have Mac OS 7.6 or higher on your Mac,
the problem may be solved by installing MacLinkPlus, which is included on the Mac
OS CD-ROM. (You can also buy this utility separately or upgrade it with more
translators from DataViz, Inc., at www.dataviz.com.) With this utility, the Mac
application will have additional translators at its disposal. With these translators
properly installed (make sure MacLinkPlus has been installed from the Mac OS
CD-ROM and that the control panel is active), the application’s Open dialog should
have many more translation choices (see Figure 28^). Select the DOS file you’re
trying to open, select the appropriate translator, and then click the Open button.
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applications.
732 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
PC Cards
The DOS and PC Compatibility Cards (and the associated software) do a
surprisingly good job of integrating themselves into a Mac and functioning side by
side with the Mac’s processor. In general, things should be as trouble-free as you
can expect from Windows and the Mac OS, with the understanding that crashes on
one system have the potential to affect the other system, and giving the PC
Compatibility Card access to the Mac’s peripherals can sometimes result in
unexpected consequences.
You can expect a few limitations regarding the typical PC Compatibility Card:
The Apple, Reply, and Radius (along with some of the earlier Orange Micro
cards) are not designed to run any OS other than DOS or Windows 3.1, and
they can have some fits when running Windows 95. (The OS itself will usually
work fine; however, some important parts of it don’t work correctly,
hampering compatibility. Specifically, most of these cards lack 32-bit device
drivers that enable Windows 95 to run in a full-compatibility mode. This limits
some of the applications that the PC Card is able to run in Windows 95,
especially multimedia titles and advanced games.
4 PC Compatibility Cards are generally designed to use the Mac’s serial ports
for serial communication (to modems, for instance). Unfortunately,
incompatibilities between typical PC serial ports and Mac serial ports tend to
cause modem connections to run very slowly for the PC Card. Some cards
offer their own serial ports (many of the cards from Orange Micro do, for
example), and Apple has offered a PCI-based serial/parallel card for PC-
Compatible Macs that allows you to use Intel-compatible peripherals.
-f Printers and modems that rely heavily on the Mac OS to function often won’t
work when accessed from the PC environment. Specifically, GeoPort modems
and LaserWriter Select 300 and Personal LaserWriter printers aren’t
supported, along with some other third-party models of both modems and
printers. You’ll have better luck with hardware-only modems cind PostScript
printers when trying to access them from DOS or Windows.
4 Most PC Compatibility Cards are designed to share a video monitor with the
Mac, switching back and forth in response to a hot-key sequence. This means
the PC Setup software needs to properly set up and use the video card while
in PC Compatibility mode. The PC Cards work best with very standard,
multisync monitors, and, preferably, a second monitor that hooks directly into
the VGA port on the PC Card.
4* Working with removable media from the PC Compatibility environment can
sometimes create trouble, especially with disks such as the Iomega Zip that
tend to mount themselves on the Mac desktop.
The following troubleshooting issues are more or less applicable to the entire line
of PC Compatibility Cards. Some of them also affect the older DOS Compatibility
card. If the issue ahects only OrangePC Cards, I’ll mention that specifically.
Chapter 28 -f Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 733
Note The first thing you should do is update the PC Setup software you're using with your
Apple-brand PC Compatibility Card if you haven't for a while. The exception is the
card in a Quadra 610 -the last available upgrade for that machine is PC Setup 1.0.2.
PC doesn't start up
If youVe installed the card and its software, and you can’t get the card to start up
(either the options are grayed out in the PC Setup control panel or you get an error
message), you need to begin your troubleshooting by isolating a potential software
problem, and then move on to evaluating the hardware. To begin, follow these
steps:
1. Check that the control panel is properly installed and turned on. You may
need to restart after installing or moving the control panel.
2. Make sure you’ve chosen a valid DOS or Windows startup volume in the
control panel. On most of the cards, this can’t be a DOS-formatted hard drive
in your Mac; it needs to be a disk container on a Mac-formatted drive. (You
can use the DOS-formatted hard drive as the D drive.)
3. Check to make sure you don’t have an extension conflict. Try restarting with
only the basic Mac OS extensions and the extensions necessary for your PC
Compatibility Card.
4. Try throwing away your PC Setup, Detente (Reply), or OrangePCi preferences,
especially if you’ve recently upgraded the software. Restart and try again.
5. Restart and zap PRAM. Restore the settings in the PC Card’s control panel and
try again.
6. Reinstall the PC Card’s software. Look for a newer version on the
manufacturer’s Web site.
7. Open the case and make sure the card is properly seated in its slot. If it’s a PCI
card, try changing the slot it’s in. If you can put it in the bus master slot (the
one closest to the Mac’s processor), go ahead and try that.
8. Hit the reset button on your logic board to reset the PCI bus.
If none of these work, you might try the card in another Mac, or create a clean
install of the Mac OS and try installing the card and the software all over again. You
should also try the card with and without any additional RAM installed on the card.
Be careful not to confuse a monitor problem with a PC Card problem; if the monitor
switches to black but nothing happens, suspect the monitor and monitor
connection.
PC starts up black
This is probably a problem with the monitor settings, connection, or the monitor
itself. If the monitor is the same one you use for your Mac (or you otherwise know
it to be in working order), you should troubleshoot the connection in the back —
make sure all the cabling is as it should be — and troubleshoot the PC Setup (or
734 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
Detente or OrangePCi) control panel. Specifically, you want to make sure the
control is set for the correct monitor resolution and refresh rate.
Apple lists a certain number of approved monitors for use with a PC Compatibility
Card; consult that list (in your manual or in Apple’s Tech Info library) to make sure
your monitor is compatible. If your monitor has a VGA connector, you can also try
hooking the monitor directly to the PC Card to make sure it isn’t a problem with the
cabling you’re using to connect the Mac and PC to the same monitor.
Monitor trouble
The PC Card may not be properly sensing the monitor. You can fix this by setting
the monitor to a different setting other than the automatic one in the PC Card’s
control panel. You should also consult your card’s manual for instructions
regarding specific monitors and video chipsets.
In many cases, you may get odd or high-end monitor options in Windows that your
monitor doesn’t support, so be wary when changing resolutions and color depths.
You may find, for instance, that the card gives you the choice of 24-bit color or a
very high resolution. Generally 800x600 or 1,024x768 and 16-bit colors are the
highest you’ll get from the PC Card. (Earlier cards offer lower resolution and color
depths.)
If the screen appears with a large black border around it, you’ve chosen a
resolution for the PC environment that’s lower than the monitor is designed (or
adapted) to support. Either change the setting on your monitor’s VGA-to-RGB
adapter or increase the resolution in Windows.
Newer PC-compatibility cards from Apple and Reply feature an ATI chipset that
should be auto-sensed by Windows, which then chooses the appropriate driver.
During installation, Windows 95 will ask you to choose the type of monitor you’re
using — you should do so, telling it as closely as possible the model you have.
If you have a fixed-frequency monitor, you may experience some trouble with video
playback (running Video for Windows, and so on) in the Windows environment.
Some video games and multimedia titles may be poorly synchronized between the
audio and video. The only answer is to upgrade the monitor to a multisync model.
DOS won't boot
Make sure you have a valid DOS driver container selected in the DOS card’s control
panel as the C drive. If you suspect that there’s something wrong with the drive
container, you should be able to boot DOS by inserting a DOS system disk in the
floppy drive and starting up the PC.
Chapter 28 ^ Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 735
If DOS still won’t boot, but it’s switching to a blank screen, it’s possible that the DOS
card itself has crashed or hung and needs to be physically reset. Usually you can do
this in the PC Card’s control panel. If that still doesn’t work (unlikely, but possible),
you may want to shut the Mac all the way down so that the PC Card no longer gets
power. Try starting up again, and then test the card.
You should also test for extension conflicts and look for an update for the PC Card
software. If necessary, you can reinstall the PC Card software and/or create a new
drive container and attempt to install DOS and Windows in the new container. You
should also make sure the card is properly seated in its PCI slot. You might try the
card in a different slot (preferably the bus master slot), especially if you’ve recently
installed another PCI card.
Modem setup
One of the biggest headaches with a PC Compatibility Card is getting it to function
correctly with a Mac modem when you need to connect the PC environment over
phone lines. Because of inconsistencies between the Mac’s RS-422 serial port and
the RS-232 serial ports that Windows expects to deal with, the results will usually
be less than pleasing.
To use your Mac’s modem in the PC environment, it needs to be a hardware-based
Hayes compatible modem — preferably one that’s similar to a PC model by the
same manufacturer and has simply been repurposed for Mac use, with nearly all
its functions implemented within the modem itself. You’ll have very little luck with
software-based modems (for example, some Global Village Teleport and Apple
internal GeoPort modems) that rely heavily on a control panel and system
extension to work properly. And you’ll have absolutely no luck with a GeoPort
Telecom Adapter, which simply isn’t supported by PC Compatibility Cards.
The basic problem you’ll encounter when configuring your Mac modem in Windows
is you can’t get hardware to handshake and flow control to work from the PC
environment to the Mac modem. So, as discussed in Chapter 16, you’re severely
limited in the throughput you can expect between the modem and the computer —
at least, the throughput that the PC can manage without using hardware flow
control. In my experience, the best-case scenario is a true connection of 9.6 Kbps
and an overall (compressed, error corrected) connection of perhaps 19.2 Kbps,
with 14.4 or 9.6 Kbps more likely.
To set up the modem, you should select the following in the DOS or Windows
environment:
736 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
1. In the Mac environment, turn off any applications that might be using or
polling the modem port. This includes programs such as a fax program or a
PPP dialer.
2. In the PC Card’s control panel, map the modem port to COM 1.
3. In Windows, go to the Control Panel folder and create a new modem profile.
Specify a “standard 9600” modem.
4. Change the options as follows: Choose not to use the FIFO UART, choose
Xon/Xoff flow control, and choose 19,200 bps as the modem’s top speed.
Now you should be able to use the modem through Windows. Note that this setup
is only necessary if you’re using the Mac’s serial port for modem communications;
if your OrangePC Card has its own serial ports or your Apple/Reply PC
Compatibility Card has been augmented by Apple’s Serial/Parallel expansion card,
you should be able to set up an Intel-compatible modem with no trouble using the
PC serial port.
You may be able to get the modem to work and still have software that won’t use the
Mac modem appropriately or at all. (I’ve had trouble with America Online in the past,
unless I connect over a TCP/IP connection to the service.) The basic problem is this:
Not all RS-232 signals are available to the PC Card when it’s remapped to a Mac serial
port. Carrier Detect (CD), Data Set Ready (DSR), Request to Send G^TS), and Ring
Indicator (RI) are all unavailable to the DOS or Windows program. If your application
or serial device requires these signals, you won’t be able to get it to work.
But if your DOS/Windows program allows for some advanced modem configuration,
you may be able to implement a workaround. The first thing you can try is dig into
the program’s preferences and tell it that the modem is a Hayes-compatible 9,600
bps modem, which usually will persuade the program to talk to the modem without
using these signals. If that’s not the case, refer to Chapter 26 and your modem’s
manual to help you dig into the AT command set and disable the modem’s need to
detect a carrier and use hard flow control. If you can manage that, you can probably
use the modem at speeds between 9,600 and 19,200 bps.
Crashes and errors on the Mac
A crash of the PC can sometimes bring down the Mac, although more often you
should be able to hot-key back to the Mac environment and restart the PC from the
PC Card’s control panel.
Crashes on the Mac itself can occur sometimes, especially with out-of-date PC
Setup software. If your Mac crashes on startup, it may be because it’s trying to start
the PC as the Mac starts up — which is one option in the PC Setup control panel. A
crash at this point could keep you from getting to the Mac OS to troubleshoot the
problem. The solution is to start up with extensions off, open the PC Setup control
Chapter 28 > Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 737
panel, and turn off the Auto-startup option. You can then restart the Mac with
regular extensions loading. Once the Mac has started up, you can troubleshoot the
problem with the PC Card from the Finder.
You can also encounter a problem if the PC Setup control panel is set to map a
serial port to a COM port and also has Auto-startup selected. In that case, you may
have a conflict with your Mac modem software that results in crashes, freezes, or
other errors from within your Mac’s modem-oriented applications. It’s best to set
the PC Setup control panel to not map any of the serial ports to COM ports until
you’re ready to the use the PC and have turned off other modem-based Mac
programs and/or extensions.
Note
Apple recommends that you not rebuild the desktop while auto-start is active. In fact,
it's probably a good idea (in my opinion) to leave auto-start off completely. It seems
to cause more trouble than it addresses, including overall system slowdowns and
occasional errors.
To avoid crashes on the Mac, your first step is to update to the latest version of PC
Setup that your Mac can handle. Many bug fixes and other issues are addressed
with the later releases of the PC Setup software.
The PC Setup preferences can become corrupted, resulting in error messages such
as “PC Setup, Unimplemented Trap” and some random crashing or freezing. If you
experience this, you can drag the PC Setup preferences file (in the Preferences
folder in the System Folder) to the desktop and restart the Mac. Run PC Setup to
see if the problem recurs. If it doesn’t, you can throw away the preferences file.
Open Transport can cause compatibility issues with the PC Setup control panel.
Check the Read Me file that came with your PC Setup installation to determine
which version(s) of the Mac OS and Open Transport are required for proper
operation of your PC Compatibility Card. Remember also that the PC Card is a
complex component in your Mac and that new versions of the Mac OS will
sometimes require the card to be specifically supported with a software update.
That may take time to get from Apple, so check the Read Me file and installation
instructions before you upgrade to a major new version of the Mac OS.
RAM modules installed on some cards under specific circumstances can cause
crashes. Try booting the card without the RAM module installed to isolate the
problem. (If this doesn’t work either, your problem lies elsewhere.) If the card
works while sharing memory with the Mac, upgrade to the latest version of PC
Setup and try installing the RAM module again. If it still doesn’t work, the problem
may lie with the module itself.
738 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
Crashes on the PC side
Many PC Compatibility Cards only support Windows 95 or 98 in the most
roundabout way, with real mode drivers required for some of the components
to work correctly. (Real mode is a backward-compatible mode in Windows 95
that enables it to work with driver programs designed for older versions of DOS
and Windows.) In day-to-day use, this may slow your work down slightly, but it
shouldn’t affect many Windows programs. However, it can keep you from working
with anything that requires a 32-bit clean Windows system (one that uses no real
mode drivers).
More often than not, it’s Windows’ high-end graphics and gaming technologies that
require 32-bit clean operation. That includes DirectX support as well as some other
Windows multimedia technologies. You shouldn’t attempt to install DirectX on an
Apple or Reply card (newer Orange Micro cards have 32-bit drivers that support
these Windows technologies). If certain games, multimedia programs, or even the
Office Assistant in Microsoft Office for Windows cause crashes in your Windows
environment, try to avoid using them, unless you’re able to obtain 32-bit drivers for
the PC Card.
Although Apple has expressed no interest in writing these drivers, there’s
speculation at the time of writing that Orange Micro may make their drivers (which
are already available for their cards) available for owners of other card brands.
(There’s no guarantee that this will happen, however.) Check www . orangeini cro .
com for details.
Software emulators
If you’ve got a fast Power Macintosh and have opted for SoftWindows or VirtualPC,
you’ll probably find that you have slightly fewer problems than owners of PC
Compatibility Cards; you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting Windows
software to work correctly, although the trade-off is a pretty serious speed hit
compared to a physical DOS card.
Probably the biggest problem you’ll encounter with these emulation programs is
when you don’t (or can’t) allocate them enough RAM to run properly. They tend
to be very hungry for RAM, which isn’t too surprising; after all, they’re emulating
either the Windows environment (SoftWindows) or an entire Intel-compatible PC
(RealPC, VirtualPC), both of which require at least as much RAM as a typical Mac.
If you plan to use one of these programs extensively, I highly recommend you
double the amount of RAM in your Mac so that you can dedicate a large chunk of
RAM to the emulation program while still being able to get things done in the Mac
environment.
Chapter 28 -f Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 739
Printers and modems
Software emulators suffer from a few of the same problems PC Cards encounter,
including certain limitations with dealing with Mac modems and printing issues.
Fortunately, both of the major emulation companies offer some significant
workarounds — after all, the emulation program is ultimately a Mac application, not
a Windows machine. If you have problems printing or using a modem, make sure
the software program supports the modem (check its documentation and Read Me
files). Next, make sure the program’s special drivers are loaded in Windows to make
those Mac peripherals work with the Windows environment.
In some cases, you’ll find the most convenient way to fix an interface problem with
an emulator (a mouse, display, modem, printer, or something similar that once
worked and no longer does) is to restart the emulator with a new DOS drive
container image. On the CD used to install your emulator, you’ll likely find one of
these images that can be copied to your hard drive and used immediately to boot
the environment. You can then assign the older container to be the D or E drive, for
instance, and copy over any important documents. Unfortunately, the way
Windows installs programs will likely require you to reinstall them for the new drive
container instead of simply dragging them over.
To avoid this, though, it’s recommended you change the Windows settings for
monitors, printers, modems, and other peripherals as rarely as possible. In many
cases, the installed environment is already optimized for working with your Mac
peripherals, and changing these settings can cause hours of headaches later. Work
closely with the software’s documentation to learn what’s best left alone.
GeoPort and software-based modems will often work with emulation programs, but
you may need to disable flow control and change some other settings, according to
the emulator's documentation.
Mice
It’s important not to change the mouse driver in the Windows environment,
because the emulator needs to use a special driver to enable the Mac mouse to
work in both the Mac and Windows environments at the same time. When you
move into DOS (and perhaps some other operating systems, if your emulator
supports them) you may need to specifically load a DOS mouse driver to get
things to work correctly. In Windows 95, for instance, you can type mouse and
press the Return key at a DOS window prompt to enable a DOS-based mouse
driver. You can also install this command in the Windows 95 autoexec.bat file
to load the driver automatically.
If your emulator doesn’t feature a mouse driver for DOS, look for an update from
the software publisher.
740 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
If you have a programmable mouse, you can probably program one of the mouse
buttons to mimic the right-click of a Windows mouse in the emulated environment.
For SoftWindows, the programmable key should emulate the equals (=) sign; in
VirtualPC, it should be programmed to emulate Shift-Tab.
CD-ROMs
Emulation environments can have some trouble with third-party CD-ROM drives,
especially those that use the FWB CD-ROM kit software. In most cases,
workarounds exist. Look for updates on the publisher’s Web sites. If you’re having
trouble getting PC CD-ROMs to appear in the emulated environment, make sure the
ISO9660 File Access option is checked in the CD-ROM Toolkit control panel and/or
that the 1SO9660 File Access extension appears in your Extensions folder and is
loaded at startup.
You should then make sure the CD-ROM Toolkit control panel is set up to enable
mounting of any ISO 9660 volumes of “dual-format” Apple HFS CD-ROMs. This
allows a hybrid CD to work with the DOS environment.
In other cases, you may find that access to FWB-based CD-ROM drives is very slow.
Turn off caching or acceleration in the CD-ROM Toolkit control panel to increase
performance in the Windows environment.
Summary
4- If you plan to use a lot of 3D applications or games, you’ll want your
accelerator in tip-top condition. Many recent Power Macs include 2D and 3D
acceleration, but they require the correct QuickDraw 3D drivers to make
things work well. Often this is managed by system extensions, which you’ll
want to load correctly for best performance.
^ With 3Dfx Voodoo cards, things can get even a bit more complicated, because
they’re designed as add-ons for regular 2D cards. Make certain you have all
the cabling, setup and software drivers correct. Next, as with QuickDraw
3D, make sure your program or game supports the 3D technology you’re
trying to use.
4“ Setting up game controllers is a mess on the Mac. If you’re lucky, both your
program and your controller support the Input Sprocket, which makes it a
piece of cake to select your particular controller from within the game itself.
In other cases, you may need to configure the controller manually, choose a
game profile in the game controller’s control panel or load a controller profile
into the particular game that you’re using. For dedicated gamers, this usually
means surfing the Web sites of the controller manufacturer and game
developer to get the right match.
Chapter 28 ^ Gaming, Multimedia, and DOS Issues 741
4 Almost any modern Mac can deal directly with Windows and DOS floppies and
files, but you’ll need to dig into the PC Exchange control panel to make sure
nothing is lost in the translation. If you’ve got a Wintel file you simply must
edit in a Mac program, there’s probably a way to get that done easily.
♦ If you’ve got a PC Compatibility Card, you’ve got a really powerful way to deal
with Windows documents and applications. However, things can break down a
bit when you use an unsupported OS or you try to access Mac peripherals. A
couple of workarounds make life a little easier, but the sad fact is everything
doesn’t always work correctly.
4 For Windows and PC emulation software, the good news is some clever
programming has made these into great applications that can fool almost any
PC application into running on top of the Mac OS. The hit you take is with
some minor compatibility issues — and emulation is a lot slower than a new
PC Compatibility Card, at least, for now. Someday soon, high-speed G3 and G4
processors may help emulation programs take on the Pentium II chip and
beyond.
PowerBook
Problems
S tranger things have happened than a PowerBook not
lighting up when you hit the Power key. The all-in-one
PowerBooks are convenient, state-of-the-art and, in some
ways, amazing; almost the same technology that can require a
minitower case for a desktop computer can fit in the small
space that’s taken up by a PowerBook. At the same time,
though, all these components — so close together — can offer
up a few special quirks, as can the software and hardware
required to tie all of them up in such a nice, neat little
package.
The PowerBooks have their own power management
hardware and software that tend to differentiate them from
desktop Macs. They also have their own interfaces types —
docks, bays, and PC Card slots — that you don’t find in
desktop models. In the same way, they rely on LCD
technologies and batteries for power, two things that aren’t
much a part of the desktop computing world at this point.
So, PowerBooks have their own unique sets of problems aside
from those already touched on in earlier chapters. (For
instance, you can troubleshoot SCSI, serial port and ADB
problems on PowerBooks much the same way you do with
desktop Macs.) This chapter takes a look at troubleshooting
PowerBook-specific problems as well as offering workarounds
and solutions for a few known problems with various
PowerBook models.
4 ^ 4 ^ 4 4 ^
In This Chapter
Startup and power
problems
Batteries and battery
care
Other PowerBook
issues
4 4 4 4
startup. Shutdown, and Power
As you may already know, Macs can be trouble to get started
up; that’s because of the whole Power key system that’s
designed to be functional, easy, and cool. With many Intel-
744 Part 1114* Troubleshoot and Repair
compatible PC models (or with a VCR or blender, for that matter) you push a
button or throw a switch — even if that switch is on the back of the machine, way
down below the desk, behind the trash can, and around the corner from the cafs
scratching post.
With PowerBooks, powering on can become even more complex. To turn the
PowerBook on, you need to have it in the correct mode, you need to have some
source of power (with a good charge in it) hooked up to the Mac, and you need to
have the screen ready to register that something is going on and there’s a reason
for it to be awake. Because PowerBook displays don’t have an LED indicator to tell
you what’s going on like most desktop monitors do, it can be tough to tell if a
PowerBook is even turned on, much less if the Mac OS is started up and everything
else Is working properly.
If you’re having trouble getting starting with a PowerBook, you’ll need to isolate the
problem. If the trouble is getting your PowerBook to turn on, check the items that
follow to see if you can solve or isolate the problem:
4 Check the batteries. On some Mac models, the batteries feature an external
LED indicator. On others, you need to remove the battery to see the indicator.
(Pre-3400 series PowerBooks don’t have either.) If you suspect that the
battery isn’t full charged, plug in the power adapter. If you think the battery is
charged, take it out and replace it to ensure it’s properly connected. If you can
test the PowerBook with a battery you know is good (or if it fires up when you
use the power adapter), the battery may be dead; have a service center check
it out.
4 * Check the power adapter. Make sure the power adapter is properly attached to
the PowerBook and that it’s plugged into a working power outlet or surge
protector. The power adapter should get warm after a few minutes of being
plugged in. Check the power brick and its connection to the outlet cable —
these often come loose, even if they don’t look loose from a distance. If you’ve
charged the batteries recently, your PowerBook still may not start up if the
power connector is only half-way plugged in or otherwise faulty. Also, make
sure you’re using the right power supply for your particular PowerBook —
they are not all interchangeable.
4 - Is the power outlet good? Don’t forget to try different locations in your building
to make sure there Isn’t something wrong with the power socket your
PowerBook is plugged into.
4 * Is the SCSI cable plugged in? If you have the SCSI Disk Mode cable plugged in,
shut the Mac down and unplug the cable. If another SCSI cable is plugged in
but the connection isn’t properly terminated, you may have trouble starting
the PowerBook, or it may have crashed.
4 * Is it asleep? Try tapping the spacebar or another key to see if the PowerBook
is in Sleep mode and needs to be awakened.
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems 745
-f Is the screen brightness set wrong? It’s possible that the PowerBook is turned
on, but you can’t see the screen because its brightness setting is turned too
far down. Reset the brightness setting to a middle level, and then test to make
sure it’s working, it’s not in Sleep mode, and so on.
You may also have luck if you remove the battery (or batteries) from the
PowerBook for a few minutes, and then try to restart with only the power adapter. If
that works, plug the battery back in and make sure it’s completely and properly
connected. Next, check your PowerBook utilities to make sure the battery is
charging. (Depending on the Mac OS version and PowerBook you have, you should
see a menu bar icon or a control strip indicator that tells you the battery is being
recharged.)
It’s also possible that the Mac has crashed while in Sleep mode. If you suspect this
is the case (and nothing else so far has worked), you can hit Ctrl-§§-Power to
perform a hard reset of the PowerBook. If that doesn’t work, check the back of the
PowerBook for a Reset button and push that button to reset the PowerBook.
(Resetting is covered in the next section.)
Shutdown, sleep, and reset
If you suspect that your Mac has crashed or hung and you can’t get it to reset,
you have some options. Aside from Ctrl-§§-Power, you can do a couple of different
things to reset PowerBooks, depending on the model. Earlier Mac models have
both a Reset and an Interrupt button. The Reset button is marked with a small
triangle, and it performs the same function as turning the PowerBook’s power on
and off — that is, it performs a hard reset, not just a typical restart. The Interrupt
button is marked with a small circle, generally used by programmers to get access
to the command-line debugger interface. (The key combination §€-Power works
does this same thing on some PowerBook and Mac models.)
If you think your PowerBook has frozen or hung, don’t forget to try the steps for
dealing with a frozen Mac outlined in Chapter 30 first. These include waiting, testing
external ADB connections, and forcing the current application to quit using the §€-
Option-Esc key sequence. If these attempts fail, though, you should reset your
PowerBook.
After you’ve reset it, you can troubleshoot the nature of the freeze as you would
with any Macintosh. The only difference is PowerBooks are more prone to freezes
while in Sleep mode.
Resetting
A hard reset, unlike the Mac OS’s Restart command, will erase the contents of a
RAM disk, if one is present. A hard reset on some models can also return values in
PRAM to their defaults, requiring you to change settings in your control panels.
746 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
The steps to follow to restart particular Mac models are listed below:
4 PowerBook 100. The PowerBook 100 has no Power button, so it usually
enables you to start the Mac by pressing any key on the keyboard. It does
have both Reset and Interrupt buttons, which are found on the left side of the
PowerBook (when you’re facing the screen). The Reset button is the closer of
the two to the front of the machine.
4 PowerBook 100 series. The Power button is found on the back of the unit
inside the back panel. You’ll need to open the back panel door to gain
access to the Power button. In most cases, you should be able to perform
a hard reset on these PowerBooks by holding down the Power button for a
few seconds and waiting until the PowerBook shuts down completely.
(The Reset and Interrupt buttons are recessed into the back of the case,
requiring a paper clip to use them.)
4 PowerBook Duo series. These machines have two power buttons — one on
the keyboard and one on the back of the PowerBook (if you’re facing the
screen, reach your right hand around the back to find it). To perform a hard
reset the PowerBook, hold down the Ctrl-§§-Power keys. To hard reset, hold
down the rear power button for five seconds or so.
4 PowerBook 500 series. These PowerBooks feature a keyboard power button.
To reset power on these models, use the familiar keystrokes Ctrl-9€-Power for
a soft reset. If that doesn’t work, you can use Ctrl-Option-§i-Power for a hard
reset. If you have trouble starting up, you may have luck if you hold down the
Power key for a few seconds. (These key combinations work for the Duo 280
and 280c, too, incidentally.)
4^ PowerBook 5300/190 series. These PowerBooks have two Power buttons — a
keyboard Power key and a button that ’s behind the rear access panel below
the video connector. To reset these Macs, use the Ctrl-§€-Power key sequence.
To shut the PowerBook down, press the Power button. If you have trouble
shutting the PowerBook down or starting it up, hold in the Power button for a
few seconds. It can also be hard reset using the button on the back panel.
4 PowerBook 1400 series. This PowerBook has one Power key (on the
keyboard) and a Reset button, found behind the rear access panel between
the serial port and the ADB port. Try resetting with Ctrl-§§-Power, but if it
doesn’t work, you can press the Reset button to restart the PowerBook.
4 PowerBook 3400/G3 3500 series. These PowerBooks have the typical
keyboard Power key and can be reset using the Ctrl-§§-Power key sequence. If
that’s not working, you can use the Reset button, located behind the rear
access panel next to the lOBaseT Ethernet connector.
4 PowerBook G3 series. These units have a keyboard Power key and you can
perform a soft reset with the Ctrl-§€-Power key sequence. For a hard reset, the
G3 series has its own unique key combination: Shift-Function-Ctrl-Power. The
Function key (Fn) is a new key with this series.
Chapter 29 4 - PowerBook Problems 747
Sleep problems
PowerBooks will occasionally crash or freeze when they go into Sleep mode or
when the screen dims. If this happens to you, use the following methods to isolate
the problem:
4 - Are you running a screen saver or background application? Third-party screen
savers and power management programs can affect the PowerBook while it’s
in Sleep mode. Other programs, such as background virus checkers, hard-
drive integrity checkers and datebook alerts can also get confused by Sleep or
screen-dimming modes. Check for an update or workaround from the software
publisher.
4 - Are you connected to an external monitor? Restart, disconnect the monitor,
put the PowerBook in Sleep mode, and see if the crash happens again. If the
crash doesn’t happen, a program you’re running may be incompatible with
dual-monitor support while the PowerBook is in Sleep mode. If you’re
connected to AC power, try disabling the Sleep mode.
4 - Update your hard disk driver. Use Drive Setup or your hard-drive utility
program (Silverlining or FWB Disk Tool Kit) to update the driver for
your hard disk.
4 - Troubleshoot conflicts. Find out if there’s a known issue with the Sleep or
dimming features and the applications you regularly use. Also, troubleshoot
for an extensions conflict (see Chapter 32 for more on conflict
troubleshooting).
If none of these seems to be the problem, you should try zapping PRAM and, if
necessary, deal with the Power Manager. Beyond that, these Sleep crashes may
happen when a System file is corrupt. See Chapters 30 and 33 for troubleshooting
tips and quick replacement advice for a corrupt System file.
Reset the Power Manager
Resetting the Power Manager is a pretty big deal in the PowerBook world — it’s one
way you can get the PowerBook to work better when it’s on battery power, when it
won’t seem to start any other way (especially with PowerBook 5300 and 190
models) and when the PowerBook is exhibiting odd behavior. The Power Manager
is automatically reset when you zap PRAM on a PowerBook (which is done the
same way as with desktop Macs — see Chapter 30), but you may come across times
when it’s best to reset it on its own, too.
Interestingly, Apple says that one of the most common reasons for a Power
Manager corruption results from plugging the AC adapter into the PowerBook first,
and then into the wall (the way you plug in most appliances and electronics). Apple
recommends instead that you plug the adapter into the wall socket or surge
748 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
protector first, and then into the PowerBook’s AC connector. You should also avoid
turning off the PowerBook without using the Shut Down command.
You can reset the Power Manager in response to a number of symptoms, including
the following:
^ Battery power fails after a short time even after fully recharging the batteries.
^ The PowerBook appears to be dead, even with AC power connected.
^ The battery displays bizarre consumption patterns, fails to recharge, or
recharges only after an inordinate amount of time (usually days).
> When connected to AC power, the PowerBook starts itself up immediately
after accepting the Shut Down command and powering completely off.
Like zapping PRAM, resetting the Power Manager is both a fix for many different
issues and a fix of last resort. Although it may solve your problem (especially if the
problem seems to be power-related), you should exhaust all other troubleshooting
options first. Also, don't forget that resetting PRAM or the Power Manager on a
PowerBook will delete data on a RAM disk.
Unfortunately, the process is different for just about every PowerBook model,
because it tends to focus on the Reset switch. The following is a quick rundown of
how to reset the Power Manager for different PowerBook models.
PowerBook 100
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. On the rear of the unit you’ll find the battery contact switch. Flip it to the
down position.
3. Let the PowerBook sit without any power for about five minutes.
4. Simultaneously press the Reset and Interrupt buttons (on the left side of the
unit), holding them in for 15 seconds.
5. Reinstall the battery, reconnect the AC adapter (if you’re using one), flip the
battery contact switch to the up position, and then start up the PowerBook to
test it.
PowerBook 140, 145, 145 B, and 170
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. Let the PowerBook sit without any power for about five minutes.
3. Using two paper clips, simultaneously press the Reset and Interrupt buttons
(on the left side of the unit), holding them in for 10 seconds.
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems ~] 49
4. Reinstall the battery, reconnect the AC adapter (if you’re using one), and start
up the PowerBook to test it.
PowerBook 160, 165, or 180
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. Let the PowerBook sit without any power for about five minutes.
3. Reinstall the battery, reconnect the AC adapter (if you’re using one), and start
up the PowerBook to test it.
If this doesn’t reset the Power Manager (that is, if the PowerBook seems to continue
experiencing the same troubles that you’ve previously identified as problems with
the Power Manager), follow the instructions for the PowerBook 140 series.
PowerBook 150
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. Press the Reset button (on the back of the PowerBook) and hold it in for 10
seconds.
3. Plug the AC adapter back into the wall socket or surge protector. Reconnect it
to the PowerBook.
4. Push the Reset button quickly. You’ll hear a sound or pop from the speaker.
5. Push the main power button, on the back of the PowerBook. It should
power up.
If the power comes on, you can insert the battery. If the PowerBook doesn’t start
after this, it may require service.
PowerBook 500 series
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. Let the PowerBook sit without any power for about five minutes.
3. Simultaneously press the Ctrl-Option-§€-Power keys, holding them in for 10
seconds.
4. Reinstall the battery, reconnect the AC adapter (if you’re using one), and start
up the PowerBook to test it.
PowerBook Duo Series
Duos work a little differently. You should be able to reset the Power Manager by
holding in the Duo’s Power button (on the back of the machine) for about 45
seconds. If this doesn’t solve the problem, remove the battery and AC adapter,
and then let the Duo sit without power for about ten minutes.
750 Part III 4 Troubleshoot and Repair
Apple notes in its Tech Info library that one way to reset the Power Manager in a Duo
is to remove the internal backup battery. The procedure is not recommended by
Apple and will void your warranty (if you happen to still have one). Take it to a service
center.
PowerBook 190/5300, 1400, 2400, 3400/G3 (3500)
The only difference among these models is the location of the Reset button, which
is discussed in the section “Shut down, sleep, and reset.”
1. If the computer is on, shut it down.
2. Hold down the Reset button for 20 seconds. The PowerBook should restart.
3. If the computer does not restart, repeat step 2 a few times.
PowerBook G3 Series
1. If the computer is on, shut it down.
2. Simultaneously press the Shift-Function-Ctrl-Power keys on the keyboard.
3. Press the Power key on the keyboard. The PowerBook should turn on.
PowerBook 5300 or 190 That Won't Power On
If you’ve got a 190/5300 series PowerBook that appears to be completely dead, this
might be a particular Power Manager issue. You need to do the following to
reanimate the PowerBook:
1. Unplug the AC adapter and remove the battery.
2. Press the Reset button on the back of the PowerBook and hold it in for about
45 seconds.
3. Plug the AC Adapter into the wall outlet or a surge protector.
4. Reattach only the AC Adapter to the PowerBook. Don’t install the battery.
5. Press the Reset button one more time, and the PowerBook should start up
after a brief pause.
Crash when Finder loads
If you’ve just reset the Power Manager and your PowerBook crashes as the Finder
loads, it may be because the Mac’s Date and Time clock has been reset to its base
date, which is usually 1904 (some Macs and PowerBooks reset to 1956 or 1980). The
date gets reset as if the PRAM battery was removed when the Power Manager is
reset (at least, sometimes it does). This can conflict with some extensions,
especially the Claris Instant Organizer extension used with Claris Organizer. Others
may also be affected.
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems 751
The answer is to force a quit (§€-Shift-Esc) to get the Finder to continue loading. If
this doesn’t work, restart the Mac with Extensions Off (hold down the Shift key as
the Mac starts up), and then reset the clock using the Time and Date control panel
once the Finder has loaded. Restart again to load extensions and avoid the crash.
Reset after zapping PRAM
Many newer Mac models can sometimes appear to go dead or into Sleep mode
immediately after you’ve zapped PRAM. Apple lists the PowerBook 190, 5300, and
1400, in its Tech Info Library, although this problem seems to affect the 3400/G3
3500 series as well. Zapping PRAM in these machines also resets the Power
Manager, so additional steps must be taken to get the PowerBook to come up after
zapping PRAM.
Here are the augmented zap PRAM instructions for these PowerBook models:
1. Shut down the PowerBook (don’t restart).
2. Power up the machine and hold down the §§-Option-P-R keys.
3. After one startup chime, the screen will go black and the green Sleep LED will
light up.
4. Press the PowerBook’s Reset button (see previous section for location). After
what may be a brief wait, the PowerBook should come back on.
This might not be the last of it. If the PowerBook powers up but then shuts down
again, hit the Reset button. Now, if the PowerBook doesn’t come on, try turning it
on from the Power key on the keyboard.
Batteries and Battery Life
The batteries in PowerBooks have changed quite a bit over the past few years,
improving in both the amount of power they offer to the PowerBook and the length
of time that the PowerBook can remain working on a single charge of the battery.
The difference between the original PowerBook lOO’s 16MHz 68000 processor and
the PowerPC 750 processors in the PowerBook G3 Series notebooks is astounding.
It’s no small wonder that battery technology has had to play a little catch-up.
And that’s not to mention the huge color displays, the CD-ROM and DVD-ROM
drives, and the large amounts of RAM and hard drive space that we ask today’s
PowerBooks to deal with. In fact, this is where the real battery drain is; the minute
voltage required for a processor on its own is nothing compared to what power is
needed by a removable media drive, color screen, or a hard disk.
752 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
So, battery problems can really arise from two sources: First, there can be
something wrong with the battery itself or the way the battery is operating.
These range from trouble with “intelligent” batteries (batteries that have their own
diagnostic capabilities, like those in the PowerBook 500 series) to batteries
with a more chemically based memory-effect — the battery gets so used to being
recharged over and over again when it’s only consumed half its power, that it
begins to think it’s run out of juice when it’s only half-discharged.
Battery types and issues
Each PowerBook form factor pretty much requires a slightly different type of
battery. Not only do the batteries come in different shapes, with specific types of
latches and closures, but they can also vary in the actual technology (usually the
chemical makeup) used to create the battery. Each of these batteries needs to be
treated a bit differently, and each has its own troubleshooting issues.
All PowerBook batteries require proper disposal when dead. You can’t just throw
them away. Most of these batteries can be dangerous, explosive, or water-reactive
in the wrong circumstances, requiring them to be treated as hazardous waste.
Return the battery to an authorized Apple service center, which can then return the
battery to Apple or its third-party manufacturer, if appropriate. (Call ahead to the
service center to ensure they perform this service.)
Table 29-1 shows the different types of batteries, Apple model numbers, and the
PowerBooks that they work with.
Table 29-1
PowerBook Batteries
PowerBook
Battery Type
Part Number
Notes
100
Lead-acid
M3053
Works with no other PowerBooks
140, 145, 145b,
150, 170
2.5 amp Nickel-
Cadmium
(Ni-Cad)
M5417
Works with 160, 165, 165c, 180,
180c, but not recommended due to
short battery life
160, 180
2.8 amp Ni-Cad
M5653
Works with 140, 140b, 150, 160, 165,
165c, 170, 180c
165c, 180c
2.9 amp Ni-Cad
M5654
Works with all 100 series except 100,
most life of all Ni-Cads
500 series
Nickel Metal
Hydride (NiMH)
Ml 908
Special "intelligent" battery
Chapter 29 ♦ PowerBook Problems 753
PowerBook
Battery Type
Part Number
Notes
5300/190
series
NiMH
M3254
Can be recognized by 3400 and G3
(3500), but can't be swapped with
newer battery types
Duo 210/230
NiMH
M7782
Type 1 battery, works in all Duo
models, but offers low battery life in
others
Duo 250,
270c, 280
NiMH
Ml 499
Type II battery, twice the life of
Type 1. Required new battery charger.
Works in any Duo; requires
PowerBook Duo Enabler 1.0 (or
System 7.5 or above)
Duo 280,
280c, 2300c
NiMH
M2780
Type III battery, more power, works in
any Duo; requires PowerBook Duo
Enable 2.0 or System 7.5; some Duo
battery chargers also need to be
updated to deal with these batteries
1400 series
30 watt-
hour NiMH
M2538
2400 series
29 watt-hour
Lithium Ion (Lilon)
M5876
1
3400 series
32 watt-
hour Lilon
M5139
3400 supports 5300/190 battery, but
at decreased battery life
G3 (3500)
47 watt-
hour Lilon
M4895
G3 supports 3400 and 5300/190
batteries, but at decreased battery life
G3 Series
(BTO)
Lilon
M6385
Lead Acid
The PowerBook 100 uses a lead-acid battery, which can’t be interchanged with
any other PowerBook battery. The lead-acid batteries don’t experience battery
memory-effect issues, but they should also be maintained at some level of a charge
for them to continue to be useful. After a certain amount of time between charges,
the battery will lose its entire charge, and then it will begin a process called
sulfation. This is when the lead electrodes in the battery begin to convert to lead
sulfate, which ruins the battery. This can happen after as few as three months of
idle time. The PowerBook 100 battery should never be fully discharged.
754 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
The PowerBook 100 battery isn’t actively marketed by Apple, although a number of
third-party manufacturers still offer them. You should also be able to get them from
an Apple authorized dealer.
Nickel-cadmium (NiCad)
These batteries are used in all lOO-series PowerBooks except the PowerBook 100
itself. The later versions of the NiCad batteries have the most battery life and can
be used in all compatible models. Battery model number M5654 should be used
with all color lOO-series PowerBooks.
These batteries can experience memory-effect issues, causing the battery to hold a
smaller and smaller charge after each recharge. To counteract this effect, you can
fully discharge the battery by leaving the PowerBook on until it shuts itself down
(or until it gets very close to quitting, complains strongly, and goes into Sleep
mode), and then recharge the battery overnight.
This may still not help, in which case, you can try using a third-party recharging
station that does a deep discharge (fully discharges the battery) before recharging
it. Software utilities are also designed to discharge the battery, and Apple service
centers can perform a deep discharge and reconditioning on many batteries. If your
storing these batteries, NiCad batteries should hold a charge for about 2 months
and should be able to take a recharge for 6 to 12 months, according to Apple.
Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMH)
These batteries are used in the Duo series, the 500 series, and the 5300/190 series
of PowerBooks. The batteries are interchangable within each PowerBook series, but
cannot be exchanged between series (for example, you can’t use a Duo battery with
a 500 series PowerBook).
The Duo series used three different battery models: the Type I, Type II, and Type III.
Although any Duo running System 7.5 or higher (or the appropriate enabler) can
run with any of the batteries, the Type 111 is recommended for all of them, as it
offers the most battery life. The Duo’s batteries can experience battery memory-
effect, which can be fixed with a manual reconditioning or with software
reconditioning.
To manually recondition the battery, fully discharge the battery by leaving the
PowerBook on until it quits (or until it gets very close to quitting, complains
strongly, and goes into Sleep mode), and then recharge the battery overnight.
If you’d prefer to use software, the Battery Tools 2.0 utility can be downloaded from
Apple’s Support Web site (www. appl e . com/support/).
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems 755
Duo battery charger updates
Certain Duo battery charger models from Apple are only designed to charge certain battery
types, while others need to be updated to work with Type III batteries. If you're getting a red
light when you pop your battery into a Duo charger from Apple, you either have the older
charger or your newer charger needs an update.
If the Apple Duo battery charger's model number is M7778, it will only charge Type I batter-
ies. A recharger with a model number of Ml 81 2 will charge all three types of Duo batteries,
but may need to be updated to use a Type III battery. If your Ml 81 2 battery charger needs
to be updated, Apple recommends the following steps:
1 . Shut down the Duo and make sure a Type III battery has been installed. (If you're
running System 7.5.1, the Type III Battery extension must be installed.)
2 . Plug the Duo's power adapter into an AC outlet. Snap the recharger onto the side of
the power adapter.
3 - Plug the power adapter cable into the power adapter port on the back of the Duo
computer. Turn on the Duo to download the update to the charger.
The PowerBook 500 series uses its own “intelligent” batteries, which are able to
report quite a bit of information to the PowerBook, including battery monitors,
temperature settings, and other indicators on the Control Strip. These batteries can
experience memory-effect and should be reconditioned manually or using the
Intelligent Battery Update available from Apple’s Support Web site.
The 5300/190 series uses a NiMH battery that will fit into the 3400 series and G3
(3500) series, but will offer those PowerBook models much lower battery life. The
5300/190 series can’t be used with any other batteries, though, because they lack
the technology to use the more advanced Lilon battery. The 5300/190 battery can
experience memory-effect and can be reconditioned manually or using software
that came with your PowerBook.
Lilon
Lithium Ion (Lilon) batteries are used in the PowerBook 1400, 2400, 3400, G3 (3500)
and G3 (BTO) series of PowerBooks. Although you may be able to physically cram a
Lilon battery into a 5300/190 series PowerBook, don’t do it — the 5300/190 series
isn’t designed to work with these batteries.
You can identify a Lilon battery by the four small LEDs on the battery (usually on
the part of the battery that’s actually installed in the PowerBook, although the G3
BTO series batteries put the LEDs on the outside). These four LEDs indicate
percentages of full-charge left, from 25 to 100 percent.
756 Part III 4^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Lilon batteries are subject to memory-effect and can be manually reconditioned.
Fully discharge the battery by leaving the PowerBook on until it quits (or until it
gets very close to quitting, complains strongly, and goes into Sleep mode), and then
recharge the battery overnight.
Battery life
A number of different factors come together to affect your PowerBook’s battery life,
including the age of the batteries, memory-effect, your charging habits and the
charger that you use. Although all of these are important (as are deep-discharging
tactics on all batteries but the lead-acid variety in the PowerBook 100), you can
more easily control other factors on a day-to-day basis that may, arguably, have an
even more dramatic effect on your PowerBook’s battery consumption habits.
Some items that can change the speed at which the battery’s power is consumed
include the following:
4- The amount of RAM you have installed in the PowerBook.
4 The brightness setting for the PowerBook’s display, as well as whether or not
backlighting is turned on.
4- The amount of time spent accessing the hard disk, floppy, CD-ROM, or DVD-
ROM drive.
4* Settings in the Energy Saver and/or PowerBook Settings control panels,
including the operating mode of the processor and the amount of idle time
before power management kicks in.
4“ Peripherals, including internal modems, ADB devices, and PC cards.
Memory
Although you probably need the amount of RAM (or more) that you already have in
your system (especially if you’re a designer or professional who needs a lot of
RAM), you may be able to get by without upgrading RAM, and in the meantime add
a little to the PowerBook’s battery life, by conserving the RAM used by the
PowerBook; minimize the number of extra extensions and control panels you use
by paring them down in the Extensions Manager.
RAM is power hungry, but not as much as a hard drive or CD-ROM drive. So, having
a whole lot of RAM can be a good choice, too. For PowerBook owners, using a RAM
disk is certainly an intelligent option, especially if you know you’ll be using certain
saved data a lot while on a plane trip or otherwise away from AC power. Place your
data files on the RAM disk and save them to the hard drive as infrequently as
possible (every 15 minutes or so).
chapter 29 ^ PowerBook Problems 757
Be aware that you could lose the data on a RAM disk if you shut down the
PowerBook, zap PRAM, or reset the Power Manager. (You can do these things by
allowing the Mac’s power levels to get very low, removing a battery for a length of
time or leaving the PowerBook in Sleep mode for a long time so that the batteries
drain and the PowerBook shuts down.) Otherwise, RAM disk data should survive a
regular restart.
' Cross- A Chapter 6 has more on RAM settings and RAM disk controls, both of which are just as
applicable for PowerBooks.
Settings and controls
Turn down the physical brightness control for your PowerBook’s display to
conserve battery life. You should also turn the backlighting delay settings to
minimum accepted levels, so that the delay is very short before backlighting kicks
off. In bright light situations, you’ll probably be able to compute without
backlighting.
Don’t use screen savers with PowerBooks. The picture can only burn into a
PowerBook’s LCD display after months of being displayed, unchanged on the
screen. So, a screen saver isn’t necessary for short-term screen protection.
Plus, a screen saver accesses the hard drive, uses processor cycles, leaves the
backlighting on, and keeps the dimming controls from kicking off to conserve
power. Instead, set the screen to dim and blank after a few minutes. (These
controls are in the PowerBook, PowerBook Settings, or Energy Saver control
panel. See Figure 29-1.)
Mac Evangelista tip: RAM disk for startup
You can really get into this battery saving thing, as Evangelista Garry Halliday, from
Sacramento, California, proves with his tip for getting the most out of battery life by using a
RAM Disk as your PowerBook's startup disk. Actually, it sounds like a great idea. Just
remember to save your actual documents and data to the hard drive occasionally, just in
case of catastrophe. You'll also need a decent amount of RAM, at least 32MB, for this plan
to work:
"Want to maximize your running time when operating off your battery? Create a RAM disk
large enough to hold a slimmed down System Folder and an application such as SimpleText
or TextEdit. I use a 20MB RAM disk, and have room to spare. Put these files on the RAM
disk, and restart by holding down 8€-Option-Shift-Delete. This will boot your PowerBook
from the RAM disk without having to change the Startup disk with the control panel each
time you restart. Select the RAM disk to save your work, and you can work easily twice as
long because your hard disk hardly ever gets accessed."
758 Part III ^ Troubleshoot and Repair
Figure 29-1: The PowerBook control
panel for energy saving settings.
Note the Custom button, which offers
you additional settings.
Here are some other recommendations for controls youTl find In the PowerBook (or
PowerBook Settings, or Energy Saver) control panel. You may need to click the
Custom button in the control panel (if one exists) to see all these settings. Also, the
names of each conservation function vary slightly between control panels, but they
should make sense:
4- Move the slider control toward Better Conservation to set automatic controls
designed to save battery life. Otherwise, choose Manual conservation
controls and change the following settings:
• Slide the System Sleeps control down to only a few minutes (two to four)
using the PowerBook control panel.
• Slide the Screen Dims setting to one minute. (PowerBooks recover very
quickly from a dim screen.)
• Slide the Hard Disk Spins Down settings to between one and four
minutes.
• Enable the Allow Processor Cycling option, if available. This option
slows the processor (causing it to draw less energy) when it’s been idle
for a few minutes.
You should also use the Special Sleep command whenever you plan to stop using
the PowerBook for five minutes or more. You should shut the PowerBook all the
way down if you plan to stop using it for 30 minutes or more, unless you have a
RAM disk whose contents need to be preserved.
You can get shareware utilities designed to automatically save and restore the contents of
a RAM disk, including AppDisk (Maverick Software), RAM Disk Backup (John Rethorst),
and ramBunctious (Elden Wood). Download the latest versions from
www.download.com.
Chapter 29 PowerBook Problems 759
Random acts of conservation
There are a couple of other things you can do to conserve power when working
with a PowerBook on batteries. They include the following:
-f Open the Chooser and turn off AppleTalk (if your PowerBook is not connected
to a network. (If it is connected to a network, you’re likely in a place with an
AC socket available, so use it.) According to Apple, this saves power and lets
the PowerBook wake up faster.
^ Turn off Virtual Memory, which uses the hard disk to allow your PowerBook
to load more programs for multitasking, making it seem as if you have extra
RAM. Accessing the hard drive drains power. Likewise, don’t use Connectix
RAMDoubler (or disable it for battery sessions).
> Use fewer feature-driven programs. Some programs are written specifically for
PowerBooks or are so slight in features that they don’t often access the hard
drive. Use those. Or, if you can get away with it, write your memos in
SimpleText, and then translate them to Word or ClarisWorks and spell-check
them once you’re connected to AC power.
4 Avoid games and educational titles that require the CD-ROM drive or play a lot
of QuickTime movies, sounds, or other files that need to be loaded from the
hard drive.
4 Don’t use external peripherals, internal modems or PC Cards while connected
to battery power. If you do use them, use them quickly, and then disable them.
For PC cards, pop them out when done.
4 Don’t use external ADB devices unless they’re low-power ADB devices that are
designed for PowerBooks. Avoid external keyboards, joysticks, game
controllers, and ADB-powered modems while on battery power.
Don’t forget to recondition your battery when you can — either manually or using a
special charging station that reconditions batteries. Apple recommends that you
perform one or the other of these procedures every 90 days or so.
Also, travel with spare, charged batteries on long trips. Some PowerBook models
still only last two hours on battery power under the best circumstances. Check
your PowerBook manual to see if you can swap batteries while the PowerBook is
in Sleep mode — nearly all PowerBooks support this feature. You usually only have
a few seconds to make the swap happen, though, so do it quickly to maintain the
information in RAM. (If your PowerBook supports two batteries, swap them one at
a time.)
760 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Battery not charging
There are a couple of different reasons a battery might not charge, including a
problem with the battery, the batteries age-old death, need for reconditioning, or
a Power Manager circuit problem. The first thing you should probably do is try
to deep discharge the battery and recharge it, to see if it’s working. If you have a
battery reconditioning unit, you might use that, or take the battery in for service.
It’s also possible that a short on the logic board could cause this problem,
especially if you notice that the PowerBook will only run with the battery and AC
adapter connected, and that it dies quickly on battery power alone, even if the
battery seems fully charged. You should try resetting the Power Manager first, as
described earlier in this chapter. If that doesn’t work, though, it’s possible that the
Power Manager circuit inside the PowerBook has gone bad and needs to be
replaced — a reasonably inexpensive fix most of the time.
other PowerBook Issues
Specific PowerBooks can suffer from specific problems, some of which are beyond
the scope of this chapter. Fortunately, PowerBook issues are easy to search for in
Apple’s online Tech Info Library. Just call uphttp://til .info.apple.com on the
Web and enter your PowerBook model or the model series in the search engine
(“PowerBook 140”) or just do a more general search on PowerBook and the
problem area (“PowerBook, display”).
But some problems can generally be applied to a number of different PowerBook
models (and one or two issues that are model-specific but interesting nonetheless).
Take a look at the following issues if you’re having PowerBook troubles.
Mac Expert tip: Parts is parts
PowerBooks have a lot of plastic on them, and some of that plastic (and a few other parts)
like to snap, bend, fold, or break. Rich Voelker, owner of Voelker Research
(www.voelker.com) in Colorado Springs, Colorado, has compiled quite a list of little
annoyances, as well as what some of them will likely cost you when you stop by the Mac
shop to have them fixed — If it's something that can be fixed.
Allow me to step back and present his list of typical problems, prices, and fixes:
(continued)
Chapter 2 $ PowerBook Problems 7G 1
(continued)
^ PowerBook 1 00-1 80c The AC adapter's insulator ring likes to break, requiring a $70
replacement for the whole adapter. (If you continue to use a fractured AC adapter,
you will be seeing your dealer later for the Power Manager circuit.) The Power
Manager circuit can go bad, resulting in repairs costing about $75 for parts and
labor. If the batter/s voltage is less than 6.8vdc, you can try to recondition it.
(Voelker would do that for about $50.) If that doesn't work, you'll pay $70 for the
new battery. In many cases and under some circumstances replacement of the $2
AC adapter end plug may also work.
^ Trackball. If the button is broken, you'll pay about $75 in labor to have it fixed. If the
trackball isn't tracking properly it can be disassembled and cleaned for $50 or so of
labor. If the trackball assembly can't be fixed, it'll cost around $1 10 plus labor for a
new trackball assembly.
> PowerBook 500 series. The Power Manager circuit can go, costing about $75 for
parts and labor. The display access cover seems to fall off a lot, especially if you
poke at it to see what's under there. It can be replaced for the cost of parts (about
$13) and labor ($25 on a good day), but be aware that this is rarely the problem if
you're having trouble with the display housing. The display housing screw posts are
often broken, causing the access cover to break off. If the whole display assembly
needs replacing, the kit from Apple will include a new access cover. The display latch
can also be snapped, requiring about $50 in labor and parts. (It's difficult to install
on a PowerBook 500.) If the intelligent battery needs reconditioning (using the
"Apple Confidential" method it'll cost a flat hour of labor.
♦ PowerBook 5300. Warranty issues covered may include a loose AC jack, split bezel,
loose trackpad (not the button), PC Card-generated crashing, or broken display
hinge. If it's not under the warranty extension, the loose power port repair should
run about $75, with the cable reseating about a $50 shop charge.
> PowerBook MOOcs. The passive matrix display can sometimes exhibit a horizontal
gray line, especially noticeable at lower brightness levels. This is, for the most part,
normal. Don't try to get anyone to fix it; it can't be fixed and is within legal
specifications for this type of display.
4- Plastic ports. In general, plastic parts are harder to get than the other stuff— because
someone has to reverse engineer (that is, figure out) the Apple naming scheme for
the parts. To complicate things even more, the costs on the parts are relatively low,
further discouraging a technician from searching out the part number. Most
PowerBook plastics are less than $50 and typically run between $10 and $25.
Display access covers are about $15 and I/O access doors are about $8 to $10. If
you've cracked or lost something, ask your Apple dealer -he or she should be able
to get the part for you from Apple.
762 Part III 4- Troubleshoot and Repair
PC Card issues
PC Cards are generally pretty easy to work with using the Mac OS and PowerBooks.
Like most Mac things, they’re visual, they give great sensory feedback, and It makes
no sense that you’re actually supposed to drag them to the Trash can. (Yikes!) Still,
you can run into a little trouble:
4- Size matters. Remember the types of PC Cards and the types you can use. The
types, by the way, refer only to the height of the card. Type I cards are very
thin (usually memory cards) and can be put in either PC Card slot — two can
fit at one time. Type 11 cards are also thin, and two of them can fit at once. A
Type 111 card (often a miniature hard disk or a paging card) will fill both slots,
although it plugs into the lower slot. So, you can’t use any other cards if you
have a Type 111 card installed.
^ Eject problems. If a PC Card fails to eject when you drag it to the Trash can or
highlight it in the Finder and choose File Put Away, you can attempt to
physically eject the card. Straighten a paper clip and stick it in the tiny hole
next to the PC Card slot to force the card to pop out of its slot. If it still won’t
come out, you can pull it out with needlenose pliers or your fingernails. Once
the card is out, try inserting the paper clip again and listen for the spring
mechanism to release. Check the card to make sure it’s designed for a
PowerBook and fits the slot correctly. You’ll sometimes find that the bottom
slot on your PowerBook is easier to use for oddly shaped cards.
PC Cards designed for data storage on the Newton OS platform are not compatible
with PowerBooks, although most modems and a few Ethernet cards can work
with both.
4- Modem not recognized. If you insert a PC Card and nothing happens, this
could be a sign you are using a PowerBook 500 series PowerBook with an
add-on PC Card cage. In early releases of the PCMCIA Expansion Module,
modem cards didn’t show up on the desktop. You can check the Control
Strip for the PCMCIA Quick Eject component, which lets you know that the
PC Card is mounted. Otherwise, check your modem software to see if you
have an option to change the software’s modem port setting to “upper card
slot” or “lower card slot.” If one of those options appears, your modem has
been recognized. (You may still need to choose the modem brand and other
settings.)
4* “PC Card in use’* error message. PC Cards can sometimes get stuck during use,
giving you an error message when you try to eject them, even though no other
applications are running. If this happens to a modem card, open the modem
software you’re using and make sure the modem is not set to auto-answer or
auto-dial. (If you must, you can use Chapter 26 as a guide for resetting the
modem using terminal program.) If the card is a storage card, try turning off
File Sharing, ejecting the card, and then turning it back on again. If neither
works, try restarting with Extensions Off, and then try ejecting the card again
in the Finder.
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems 763
Ports and Internals
PowerBooks have varying numbers of ports and support for external devices; even
the most modern PowerBooks have opted to include only a single serial port for
communicating with serial devices, (if you have an Apple portable computer that
includes USB ports — only a vague rumor at the time of writing — consult Chapter
10 for information on using USB.) This single serial port scenario can cause a few
headaches. (Basic PowerBook serial configuration tips are back in Chapter 20.)
Printer/Modem port
In most cases, an internal modem will simply work with your modem software.
The serial port on PowerBooks that only have one (a printer/modem combo port)
is a LocalTalk-capable port, but iCs usually mapped as a modem port. (At least,
as far as the Mac OS is concerned. In the Chooser and in control panels, you’ll
usually see the name Printer/Modem port.) So, you should usually be able to use
an internal modem and print at the same time, to either a serial printer or a
LocalTalk printer.
The exception is when you have a modem program that doesn’t support the Apple
Communications Toolbox. In this case, you’ll need to choose one of the following
options for your internal modem (through the PowerBook, PowerBook Setup,
PowerPort, or Express Modem control panel), depending on your model: Internal,
Compatible, or “Use internal modem instead of serial port.” This reroutes the serial
port so that it uses the internal modem; the errant application believes it’s using
the modem port, but it’s really using the internal modem.
Unfortunately, this creates a situation where you can’t use the serial port for any
other task while that setting remains the way it is — including printing through
that port to a serial printer. You won’t be able to use a serial device until you
turn off that modem program and switch the port back to its default mode in
the PowerBook, PowerBook Setup, PowerPort, or Express Modem control panel.
(The port can be used for LocalTalk connections, so you can print via a LocalTalk
printer, if you’d like. Set up the printer as directed in Chapter 15.)
video port
You may encounter a few problems with the external video port. If you’re not
getting a picture on the screen, check to make sure the cable is correctly
connected to the video-out port; if your PowerBook requires an adapter (most do),
make sure it’s secure as well. It’s best to put your PowerBook in Sleep mode or
shut it down before switching the video adapter cable; that way, it can sync
correctly to the monitor. Most earlier PowerBook video adapters support an
RGB port, which requires an additional RGB-to-VGA adapter. The most recent
PowerBooks include a VGA port for video out.
764 Part III Troubleshoot and Repair
If you’re only getting 640x400 or 640x480 resolution on the external monitor, it
could be because the monitor is set incorrectly. Check the Monitors or Monitors &
Sound control panel to set the second monitor’s resolution. You may also have
video mirroring turned on (or your PowerBook may only have a video-mirroring
capability), in which case the image has to be the exact same on both screens. If
the PowerBook is the more limited display, the external monitor will default to the
lower resolution. If the external monitor is more limited, then the PowerBook
screen will be forced to use a lower resolution. (The PowerBook screen will appear
with a border around it to make it take up less screen space.)
5300/190 repair extension
I’ll mention one model-specific issue: The PowerBook 5300/190 is under an Apple
repair extension program that extends Apple’s willingness to repair certain
components of the machines for seven years, under very specific circumstances.
(If your PowerBook 5300’s serial number ends in the letters AA you probably don’t
qualify.)
Here’s how to tell if your PowerBook qualifies:
4 On either model, the AC power connector becomes loose or inoperative.
Affected serial numbers are xx605xxxxxx and below.
4* On either model, using a device in the expansion bay in combination with a
PC Card causes the Mac OS to freeze. (You can move the mouse, but clicking
has no effect.) Affected serial numbers are xx605xxxxxx and below.
4- On either model, the display bezel and housing cracks and/or separates at the
hinge. Affected serial numbers are xx622xxxxxx and below.
4“ On either model, the bottom case plastics (including the palm rest, trackpad
button, center clutch cover, and CPU stiffener) can crack or develop faults.
Affected serial numbers are xx622xxxxxx and below.
4- On the PowerBook 5300, it takes twice as long to boot from AC power as it
does from a battery only. Affected serial numbers are xx605xxxxxx and below.
4 On the 5300, devices drop off of a larger LocalTalk network. Affected serial
numbers are xx622xxx3cxx and below.
If one of these seems true, take your PowerBook to an authorized service center or
call Apple’s customer service department (1-800-SOS-APPL) for instructions.
Chapter 29 -f PowerBook Problems 765
Temperature
PowerBooks are small devices that can be somewhat susceptible to temperature
shifts, both hot and cold. For this reason, never leave your PowerBook in a hot car,
in direct sunlight, or in other extreme temperature situations. If this does happen,
allow the PowerBook to cool gradually to room temperature before turning it on.
Don’t expose the PowerBook to extreme cold, either. If you leave the PowerBook in
the car or near an open window on a freezing or near-freezing night (or in similar
conditions in a car or elsewhere during the day), allow the PowerBook to gradually
warm to room temperature before turning it on. When a PowerBook gets very cold,
its internals can seize, thereby causing a catastrophic hard drive failure, for
instance, the moment you turn the PowerBook on.
Always use the PowerBook’s feet when you’re using the PowerBook on a smooth
surface; the feet help to dissipate heat through the bottom of the machine, which
keeps internal components from overheating and causing crashes, freezes, or
internal damage.
When using a PowerBook with an external monitor, don’t close the PowerBook
unless you’ve also turned the screen off; check your PowerBook’s documentation
for details. With certain PowerBook models, you can start up the PowerBook using
an external keyboard and an external monitor while the PowerBook itself is still
closed. This will leave the PowerBook’s screen turned off, and the PowerBook will
treat the main monitor as if it’s the only monitor.
Otherwise, don’t close the screen while the PowerBook is active if your model
doesn’t support this feature. The screen can build up heat that can damage
components. If you do use the PowerBook with external components, at least keep
the screen open a few inches to allow heat to dissipate.
Cleaning
You can clean the outside surfaces of the PowerBook itself (when it’s completely
shut down) with a clean, slightly damp cloth (not wet, just a tad damp). Use a
computer vacuum to clean the keys of the PowerBook and the edges around the
keyboard and screen. Use a clean, lint-free, nonabrasive cloth and a mild glass
cleaner (applied to the cloth, not the screen) to clean the PowerBook’s screen.
To clean a PowerBook’s trackball, follow these steps. (Note: Do not use any liquids
on the trackball components or elsewhere inside the PowerBook):
766 Part III -f Troubleshoot and Repair
Mac Evangelista tip: Shipping concerns
Working as a Macintosh technician, Lisa Devlin learned quite a bit about properly packaging
and shipping a PowerBook — advice you can use whether you need to overnight your
PowerBook for service or just need to pack it for a move or flight overseas. Here are her
thoughts:
"Sturdy boxes (not too large) and packaging material are critical. So is insurance for the
shipment. Antistatic wrap should be used whenever possible as a precaution. Soft form-fit-
ting foam (the stuff that's sold in rolls) is good to pack PowerBooks in, peanuts are too
unstable, and using newspaper as padding is just asking for trouble. Bubble wrap is okay if
the PowerBook is first put in some antistatic wrap or othenA/ise protected from static.
"Never, ever ship a PowerBook Duo inside a Duo Dock. Both units can be damaged by
rough handling or static. It's also best to remove PC Cards, cables, and so on when shipping
to avoid damage from jostling or static Oh, and make sure the PowerBook is off, not in
Sleep mode. It's a good idea to back up data before shipment, just in case.
"It is also extremely important to inspect the box carefully upon receipt. If it appears dam-
aged, even slightly, in any way, contact the shipping company before opening it. Make sure
the shipping company has a representative there when the box is opened if the box is visi-
bly damaged. (I once repaired a machine that was damaged during shipping, and because
the shipping company was not present when the box was opened, they refused to pay for
the damage, which was considerable.)"
1. Remove the trackball’s retaining ring by turning it counterclockwise about 1/4
of a turn. (You should be able to use your fingertips or fingernails.)
2. Remove the ring and the trackball.
3. Locate the rollers inside the trackball housing and wipe them with a lint-free
cloth, a cotton swap, or even your finger.
4. Clean the trackball with a dry towel.
5. Reinsert the trackball and its retaining ring.
With a trackpad, clean the surface only with a dry cloth or towel; don’t allow water
near the trackpad or at the edges, where it could slip through at the seams.
Spills
Spilling liquid on your Mac’s keyboard is one thing, but spilling something on your
PowerBook is quite another. After all, below that keyboard is the entire computer. If
you do spill something on your keyboard, you probably shouldn’t wait to get the
PowerBook to a technician before you take some action. (If you do want to wait.
Chapter 29 4* PowerBook Problems 767
though, at least turn the PowerBook over, shake out the liquid, and try to carry it
upside down to the service center.)
At this point, there are no guarantees. Liquid will most often kill all or part of a
PowerBook, depending on how much was spilled, how corrosive the liquid is, and
how sticky things get.
Ifs a good idea to know exactly where your PowerBook's tools (Torx and Phillips
screwdrivers in the correct sizes) are at all times, as well as an antistatic, lint-free
towel. Your PowerBook's carry case would probably be an ideal spot for these things.
You should also familiarize yourself with these instructions and the instructions for
opening your PowerBook (in Chapter 20) before disaster strikes, just so that you have
an idea what to do the second liquid touches your PowerBook.
Here are some quick steps to follow if you spill something on a PowerBook:
1. Immediately unplug the PowerBook and remove the batteries. (You can fret
over your lost data later, unless the data is worth more than the PowerBook,
in which case you can quickly hit to save, and then pull the battery and
plug.)
2. Put the machine on its front side to drain liquid while you look for your
PowerBook tools (if you need tools). Hold it firmly and shake it to try and
release liquid. If you need to leave it for a moment, you might try standing the
PowerBook on the top edge of its screen and the bottom edge of its keyboard
casing, forming an upside-down V with the screen and keyboard facing down.
3. If you feel competent to do so, open the PowerBook’s case (see Chapter 20 for
step-by-step instructions on each different form factor), at least to the point
that you have the keyboard popped out. Shake the keyboard clear of liquid
and blot it with an antistatic, lint-free towel (not a paper towel or a dirty
towel). If you don't have such a towel, just shake. You can also blot surfaces in
the PowerBook that have spills, but be very careful that you aren’t just
moving liquid around or leaving towel residue on components. There is still a
charge in the logic board (thanks to the backup battery, among other things),
so you should avoid moving liquid around on it.
Now it’s decision time. If a local Apple authorized dealer is open and reasonably
close, keep the PowerBook open and/or upside down and take it to that dealer.
Explain to them the problem and see if they can look at it on an emergency basis.
If you can’t get to a service center immediately, you might consider using a hair
dryer on a cool setting to dry things off as much as possible. If you’re lucky, you’ll
be able to concentrate your efforts on the keyboard; make sure you drain, sponge,
and dry the keyboard completely. Don’t get the hair dryer too close to components,
and don’t use a hot setting.
768 Part III > Troubleshoot and Repair
With these things accomplished, get to the service center as quickly as possible. Do
not turn the PowerBook on again, no matter how well you think you’ve cleaned it up.
The keyboard will likely be lost regardless of what you spilled on it. If it’s water, it
might survive, but you need to get it out of the PowerBook and dried very quickly.
Other parts of the PowerBook might survive water, tea, or something similar. A soft
drink can be more troublesome, but a clever use of compressed air on a fully
disassembled PowerBook by a service technician might still save it, or parts of it.
Your best defense, however, is avoidance. Do what you can to avoid spilling
anything on your PowerBook. Be much more vigilant about this than you are about
spilling on a desktop keyboard. One spill can ruin a whole PowerBook, so take that
into consideration when you eat or drink around it.
Summary
'f There are times when a PowerBook simply won’t power on; this may even
happen more often than with desktop Macs because of the elusive Power
Manager that PowerBooks require. There are more ways to get power into a
PowerBook than a desktop Mac, so there are more problems associated with
power.
^ If you need to reset your PowerBook, there’s a slightly different procedure for
each major PowerBook series. You can also do some specific things to
troubleshoot startup problems and crashing that happen right as the
PowerBook starts up.
> Working with batteries is a big part of using a PowerBook. Aside from getting
the correct replacements, you should also troubleshoot your batteries to
make sure they’re really going bad before you decide to replace them.
PowerBook batteries do need to be replaced every few years, but there are
plenty of other problems that contribute to battery failure. You can also do
quite a bit to conserve battery power to keep your PowerBook running longer
when it’s not plugged in.
4- PowerBooks can experience some odd little problems or habits that you can
try to break them of — issues such as problems with ports, video-out
capabilities, and PC Cards. Plus, certain models have their own issues,
including being part of an Apple Repair Extension program that might make
sense of some trouble you’re having.
> Finally, check out the emergency procedures for a PowerBook that has
encountered its worst enemy — liquid. Read them before it happens so you
know exactly what to do.
4
4 -
4
Tweak and
Recover the
Mac OS
P
A
R
T
I f your problem is in the Mac’s operating system software,
its solution will likely be found in these pages. Part IV
introduces you to the basic techniques and specific problems
associated with the Mac OS, including how to troubleshoot
crashing programs, freezes in the Finder, and specific error
messages. You’ll also look at preventative measures you can
take to avoid system software problems, including intelligent
approaches to managing your System Folder and other parts
of the Mac OS installation. Finally, if that installation needs a
complete refresher, you’ll find strategies for backing up your
Mac and starting all over again with a clean installation of (or
an upgrade to) your Mac OS software.
> > 4
In This Part
Chapter 30
First Aid for Ailing
Mac Systems
Chapter 31
Clean and Maintain
Your Mac OS
Chapter 32
Resolve System
Folder Conflicts
Chapter 33
In Case of
Emergency: Reinstall
the Mac OS
> 4 >
First Aid for
Ailing Mac
Systems
I n Chapter 21 I introduce the varied world of Mac
troubleshooting by looking at the factors determining
whether problems on a Mac are software or hardware related.
Chapters 22 through 29 detail some of the basic hardware
problems that can strike your Mac — along with problems
generated by software interactions with that hardware.
In this chapter (and through to the end of the book) I discuss
some software-only types of problems. These issues generally
aren’t related to problems with a particular piece of hardware
or a hardware technology such as SCSI. Instead, these
problems happen almost exclusively in software, usually
manifesting themselves when you’re just trying to get some
work done with the keyboard and mouse.
From this chapter, which identifies the basics of software
troubleshooting and shows you how to get up and running
quickly, you can move on to the others in Part IV. Those other
chapters focus on cleaning and maintaining your Mac,
resolving system conflicts, and, when absolutely necessary,
reinstalling the Mac OS.
^ ^ ^
In This Chapter
Dealing with error
messages
Fixing crashes
Freezes and hangs
Odd problems
4^ ♦ -f >
Software First Aid
Because software falls into two basic categories —
applications and system software — the software first aid
you’ll perform focuses, in most cases, on the convergence of
these two types of software. On one hand, your system
software is responsible for all the input, output, and process
management that goes on in your Mac. On the other, the
application software is required for you, the human in this
equation, to get something done.
772 Part IV 4 Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
In some cases, your troubles are caused by a specific problem with a specific
application. In most other cases, though, your problem is in the interaction
between an application (or applications) and the system software. An application
may misbehave, the system software may misbehave, or something else may create
problems that cause a blip in the communications between these two. That,
ultimately, is what leads to instability, resulting in crashes and freezes on your Mac.
First aid techniques
As discussed briefly in Chapter 21, you’ll encounter three different, basic types of
problems that create trouble with your applications and system software:
-f Bugs. Bugs are problem areas in applications or the system software that do
things they shouldn’t do. These often result in crashes or hangs, depending
on the bug, although they can sometimes just result in strange behavior or a
program not doing what it’s supposed to do.
4* Conflicts. Conflicts occur between specific programs and system software
fragments. Generally, these problems are between system extensions and
applications, although a very common subset of these errors focuses on two
system extensions that don’t get along. (These extension conflicts are
common enough to be covered by their own chapter, Chapter 32.) In either
case, they tend to cause crashes and hang-ups and can sometimes seem very
mysterious.
4- Corruption. Corruption occurs when an important file gets overwritten with
either bad or nonsensical information. This can also causes crashes, hangs
or other problems. Corruption can sometimes be avoided with proper
maintenance, as detailed in Chapter 31. However, corruption’s also a small
fact of life when dealing with a computer; it will crop up, forcing you to do
a little first aid to see if you can solve the problem quickly. (Corruption is
usually the result of a bug in a program, although any crash has the
potential to result in corrupt files that can then crash the system again
at some later time.)
These are really the three different problems that can affect software. Each of
them generally has a solution, although you’re likely to prefer that none of these
problems ever happen, as they can be a pain to troubleshoot and solve. Let’s look
at those solutions quickly before getting into the actual diagnosis. Like any good
boy or girl scout, you should first learn the technique of first aid, and then how to
apply it to your victim.
Bugs
If the problem looks to be a software bug, your best fix is to find an update on the
software publisher’s customer service Web site. Many times bugs are actually
known Issues that have been fixed, worked around, or otherwise dealt with by the
company in question. Check Apple’s Tech Info Library for clues and read the Read
Me file that came with the program. You can also check Mac OS Web sites, chat
Chapter 30 4 Rrst Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 773
groups, or mailing lists to see if others are encountering the same bug; if they are,
there’s a chance the problem will become known to the software publisher and
fixed more quickly.
Other than a programming fix, the only real first aid solution is to create your own
workarounds — don’t download a Java applet if there’s a bug in your Web browser
that makes the Java applets crash, for instance. Or, remember a certain procedure
for saving your documents when using a particular program or a particular order of
steps when printing to a problematic printer.
After first aid, if you can reproduce the bug accurately and on demand (or fairly
closely so), come up with whatever diagnosis you can and report the bug to the
offending program’s publisher. You’ll likely find some mechanism for reporting bugs
on their Web site or through their customer service center. At the very least,
knowing that you can reproduce the bug will help you convince the customer
service folks that the problem exists and needs to be looked into.
Note
Ifs usually important for your technical support representative to know quite a bit
about your computer to help you troubleshoot or report bugs. A program like Apple
System Profiler can be helpful. If you need to take a screenshot, you can usually use
§€-Shift-3 to take a PICT file of the screen that is then saved in the root folder of your
startup disk. The keystrokes §€-Shift-4 in Mac OS 8.0 and above gives you little cross-
hairs that enable you to take a screen shot of any particular area of the screen. Just
drag from one corner to the other with the mouse.
Conflicts
Often overlooked is the Read Me file, a fairly standard addition to a typical software
installer or distribution disk. If you look at your program’s disks or CD-ROM, you’ll
likely find a Read Me file that will help you determine some of the known conflicts
that have been revealed during the program’s testing. Workarounds are usually
discussed, including common extensions and programs that should be disabled,
upgraded, or avoided when working with the problem application.
If you can’t seem to find a known issue statement but still suspect a conflict, your
first aid solution is to disable all possible offenders; use the Extensions Manager to
restart with only the Mac OS Base extensions enabled, for instance, or turn off
other possible conflicts such as file sharing, background printing. Virtual Memory,
and some of the other typical Mac OS offenders. If your program still acts up, you’ll
need to decide if it’s worthwhile to continue to use it in the short term. (You can try
to limp by until the company writes an update patch by saving your work
constantly or running the program without others in the background and restarting
the Mac often.)
After first aid, you should try to troubleshoot the exact nature of the conflict as
discussed in Chapter 32. You should also look to update the software, if possible, or
774 Part IV 'f Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
choose other extensions and/or programs that don’t have a similar conflict. You
can also report the conflict to the software publisher, if it’s reproducible, to see if
they can help you troubleshoot or create a workaround.
Corruption
Overwhelmingly, corruption means a preferences file (in the Preferences folder) has
gone bad, but it can also refer to corruption in RAM, in PRAM, or in other files on
the hard drive. If you suspect corruption is crashing your program, the first aid
solution is to try throwing out its preferences file, and then restart and try the
program again. If you suspect disk corruption, load and save important data to a
different disk.
Over the long term, you should look for the source of corruption. It could be a
problem application, a large crash that caused bad data to be written, or a more
insidious problem — even a computer virus. To properly root out corruption, see
specific crash and freeze descriptions later in this chapter and consult Chapter 31
for more on maintaining your system, properly uninstalling programs, and dealing
with viruses.
Note
You'll see advice in this book and elsewhere that encourages you to sometimes trash
your preferences files when testing for corruption. This is almost never a fatal mis-
take; preferences files as a rule are to be rewritten by standard Mac programs if the
program can't find its preferences file. If you're wary, though, just drag the prefer-
ences file out onto the Mac's desktop or into another folder outside the System
Folder. You can then test to see if the file was corrupt. If the problem behavior goes
away once the file has been disabled, the file is corrupt, and it's safe to trash the file.
If the problem persists you can move the file back to the Preference folder.
Software symptoms
With a little technique under your belt, it’s time to observe the symptoms of
software failures. The symptoms are generally pretty similar — crashes, freezes,
hangs, and bizarre behavior. Sometimes you can get the Mac to start up or a
program to start up. Sometimes you can’t do something as simple as print from
your application.
The symptoms you’ll likely encounter when working with programs are as follows:
4“ Errors. You get an error message while working with the program that doesn’t
force the program to quit or shut down. Generally, you receive these
messages in an alert dialog box (in Mac OS 8.0 and above these dialogs are
outlined in red), which tells you that the last command you attempted could
not be completed because something went wrong.
Chapter 30 ^ First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 775
♦ Crashes. In this situation, you get an error message that is accompanied by
the immediate shutdown of the program. Sometimes these error messages
offer explanations, other times the program has unexpectedly quit.
4 Freezes. The Mac locks up completely, not allowing you to type, move the
mouse, or issue commands of any kind. This often isn’t accompanied by an
error message, and it leaves you no choice but to restart the Mac using the
Cntrl-§€-Power restart sequence or a physical power switch on the Mac.
4- Hangs. This is like a freeze (symptomatically), but you can still use your
mouse to click things — it’s just that nothing on screen responds. The first
thing to do is stop clicking things and wait. This behavior usually results from
the program getting itself into a logic loop that causes it to stop responding to
input from the mouse or keyboard. Overloading the input queue with clicks or
keystrokes won’t help. If, after a reasonable interval, the program doesn’t pop
back to life, you can use the §§-Shift-Esc key sequence to attempt to force quit
the program.
4 Bizarre behavior. This can be almost anything, but it cert£unly includes the
screen becoming pixelated, program commands simply fmling to work, or
issues such as files not being saved correctly, documents disappearing, or
windows behaving oddly.
Once you pin down the symptoms, you can quickly diagnose the basic problem —
bug, conflict, or corruption, you’re then ready to put your learned technique to use
for your first aid fix.
To begin, take a look at some first aid steps you can take in diagnosing and testing
based on the symptoms.
Error Messages
Hopefully, the extent of the problems you’ll have with your Mac are focused on
error messages. Error messages sometimes provide a decent idea of what
happened and why, at least giving you a fighting chance to figure out what’s wrong.
Error messages that don’t crash the application will usually have a reasonable
solution. Sometimes an error will point you to a hardware issue — perhaps the
Chooser or your modem is configured Incorrectly. Often an error message will let
you know that there isn’t enough memory for a particular request or function; in
this case, you usually try to increase memory for that application or quit other
applications that may be using that memory. Other errors have similar solutions.
Most of the error messages you see that don’t result in a crashed application
(crashes are covered in the next section) are pretty straightforwai'd. You’ll be asked
to replace a disk, troubleshoot a port, or pick a printer. .lust read your Mac’s
complaint and consult the related chapter(s) in this book.
776 Part IV 4 Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
However, some more generalized issues can crop up in the Finder and in
applications that might be caused by a variety of issues. Here are a few of those
very common errors and some solutions to try.
"Not enough memory" error message
This message will likely appear to most Mac users at one time or another. Although
it may be a symptom of a bug or corruption, it’s usually the result of a conflict;
specifically, the program has tried to use more RAM than it’s been assigned.
Here’s a quick checklist of the things you can do to combat an out-of-memory issue:
4 Check the state of RAM in the .\bout This Computer dialog box.
4 Raise the application RAM available to the troubled program.
4 Restart the Mac.
4 Check for a program update or bug fix from the application’s publisher.
You can check the Mac’s overall memory situation by switching to the Finder and
choosing the About This Computer command from the Apple menu. In that window,
check to see how much of the Application’s RAM is being used and what the largest
unused block of memory is. If the application’s f^M is nearly used (indicated by a
full bar, as shown in Figure 30-1) and there’s still room in the largest unused block,
it’s likely that your application just needs more RAM assigned to it.
Figure 30-1 : The About This Computer dialog box
tells you how much RAM Is being consumed by the
Mac OS and applications.
You can change the RAM settings for a particular application this way:
1, Shut down the application.
2. Find the application’s original icon. Highlight it and choose File O Get Info
from the Finder’s menu.
Chapter 30 -f First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems
3. In the Get Info box, enter higher values for Minimum Size and Preferred Size
under the Memory Requirements section.
4. Close the Get Info box.
Now you can relaunch the program and see if the memory errors persist.
If you got the memory error and found that there was very little memory left in the
largest unused block, it's possible that you're using nearly all of the Mac's RAM for the
Mac OS and your running applications. In that case, you may need to shut down the
problem program, shut down some other applications that you're not currently using,
and relaunch the program to use it.
But what do you do if you’re getting “out-of-memory” errors all over the place (or
you get the errors even when there seems to be plenty of memory available)? In
this case, there’s a good chance that memory has become fragmented. When
memory fragmentation occurs, a form of corruption has set in; a number of
programs have been opened and closed on this Mac, and those programs, once
closed, haven’t always done a stellar job of releasing all the RAM they were using.
After a while, these fragments of leftover code become a problem, because the Mac
is trying to take notice of them and track them to keep them from causing trouble. If
memory gets fragmented enough, you’ll get odd out-of-memory errors that can only
be cured by restarting the Mac.
You could also have a bug in your application that causes it to use memory
inefficiently, or leak memory, meaning it begins to take up all the available memory
because it’s not handling its assigned memory well. In either case, a recurring “Out
of Memory” error message will result because the program isn’t working correctly,
not because of any problems on your end. If you suspect this is the case, surf the
publisher’s Web site and check for an update or bug fix for the program in question
Explore your memory settings
If you have repeated problems with "Out of Memory" error messages, your Mac may be
telling you something— add more memory. But if you need to squeeze that RAM a bit to
make things work in the short term, you might be able to get a little extra RAM from your
Mac to make that application run more cleanly.
The obvious place to start is to use as few extensions and control panels as you can. Try to
pare down your Extensions Manager so that you're only using the most important extensions
you need to run. You can also lower the requirements of some applications by managing your
fonts a bit If you have tons of different fonts in your Fonts folder, try moving all the nonessen-
tial ones to another folder (you could create a Fonts - Disabled folder in the System Folder or
use one of the shareware solutions on the included CD for font management).
(continued)
778 Part IV 4- IVveak and Recover the Mac OS
(continued)
The real savings, though, may come about in the Memory control panel. You can gain some
RAM back by lowering the amount used for disk cache or by doing away with a RAM disk,
although both of these solutions can decrease performance. One way to boost the amount
of RAM available to your Mac is to turn on or turn up the amount of Virtual Memory in the
Memory control panel. Virtual memory enables your Mac to use a portion of the hard drive
to swap data in and out of RAM, allowing you to work with more and larger applications at
one time. Of course, this is a trade-off, too, because it'll slow down your Mac's performance
quite a bit. When you can, buy more RAM to get the best of both worlds.
"Disk is full" error message
This one usually crops up when, you guessed it, your disk is full. In general, it
happens when you’re trying to copy or save a document to the drive in question,
or when you’re otherwise transferring data (it could happen as you check for new
e-mail or surf the Web, for instance, because both save data to the hard drive while
you’re working). Be especially wary when you’re creating digital audio, video, or
working with high-end photographic images, all of which can require an enormous
amount of disk space.
The solution, in most cases, is to clean some of your stuff off the disk and try to
copy or save again.
If the disk isn’t really full, though, you could have some disk damage or
fragmentation problems with the drive — both of which are solved with a
combination of Disk First Aid and a disk doctor program from a company like
Norton or Micromat. (Chapter 23 has a lot more on using these programs.)
Remember, there can be some interesting culprits on your drive that are taking up
the space. Check your e-mail program’s folders, the “downloads” folder in the AOL
or Web browser’s folder, and your Web browser’s folder in the Preferences folder.
All of these can be storing untold hidden megabytes that can be eating up space on
your drive.
This error can also result from running a very old program (likely one written
before the release of System 7.0) that incorrectly calculates available disk space. In
this case, your best bet is to try and use a newer program or look for an update for
the current one.
Chapter 30 ♦ First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 779
"File not found" or "File system error" message
If you see either of these error messages, and after checking for the obvious (such
as the file not actually being where it should be or a network volume that suddenly
disappears) you still have problems, your Mac could be experiencing some sort of
file corruption or problem with the desktop database files. Because Macs are pretty
good at tracking files and disks, you’ll usually get an error that says something like
“Please insert the disk “ if you’ve managed to eject a floppy disk or removable
media disk that’s currently in use.
So, getting a “File not found” error message means something fishy is going on. If
your Mac is part of a network, that’s one thing to suspect; it’s possible that an
application was expecting to find an active network connection and an important
file, but the network connection went down.
Much of the time, though, this error results from a disk or disk directory error. You
should try a few things. The immediate concern is to save any work that you have
open. Try to save or use the Save As command to save any open work you have.
You might consider trying to save the document(s) to another floppy disk or
removable disk if you’re concerned that there’s something wrong with your hard
drive.
You should next follow the basic storage media troubleshooting plan:
4“ Rebuild the desktop using a tool such as Micromat’s Techtool.
4 Reboot using a boot disk or a system CD (if the problem is with your startup
disk) and run Disk First Aid to diagnose the drive.
4 Run a disk doctor program such as Micromat Techtool 2 or Norton Utilities.
Program Crashes
When a program crashes, you’ll generally get an error message along with the
famous Mac bomb icon. The program has tried to do something that the operating
system feels is illegal. You’ll also often get an error message or number that tells
you, for instance, that you have a Type 1 1 error. In many, many cases, these errors
are pretty much meaningless. It’s tough to troubleshoot based on them, so I’ll
discuss them more generally.
The error codes are really meant for programmers. Looking at a long list of these
codes tells you what each of them is supposed to mean, but they can mean some
very complicated and confusing things. They’re also not really supposed to show
up in programs. When they do, they’re usually the result of bugs.
780 Part IV 'f Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Are you really interested in the program codes? Check out the shareware resources Apple
Error Codes and Easy Errors, both located on the CD-ROM included with this book.
What follows is a more general discussion of what’s going on with your Mac when it
crashes and what you can do about it. There are really three basic types of crashes,
all of which usually offer the same result: a program disappears, sometimes leaving
the system unstable and sometimes allowing you to continue computing. For the
most part, the same software problems that cause other problems cause crashes:
bugs, conflicts, and corruption. There are a few clues to show you which is which,
but some of it is guesswork:
4 ^ Error message or code. This sort of crash manages to pop up an alert box
(usually with a bomb in it) that tells you something untoward has happened,
so the Mac OS is making the program go away. This is a controlled sort of
crash that usually sees your system recovering safely to the Finder. If you get
an error message, you can suspect any of the three types of problems,
although bugs and conflicts are more likely.
4 - Unexpectedly quit. This sort of crash usually leaves you wondering for a
moment — the application just disappears into oblivion, followed by a
message in the Finder telling you the program unexpectedly quit. It’s abrupt,
but the Finder almost always recovers. All three problems can cause this, but
if it’s reproducible, suspect a bug in the program.
4 - No message. In this case, the program just quits, disappears, or otherwise
becomes inaccessible. This sort of crash is a bit more rare and usually
accompanied by increased instability, although you may be able to work in
the Finder or other applications for a while. This suggests a larger system
problem, possibly a conflict.
So what can you do about a crash? It’s important to be able to isolate the crash by
taking a few different factors into play, including what you’ve done recently and
how persistent the error is. Your first aid goal is to get past the crash, save your
work, and restart your Mac; after any crash, the Mac may be too unstable for more
thcin a few minutes worth of work. Use the Specials Restart command to get your
Mac back in fighting shape as soon as you’ve saved your critical data in other non-
crashed applications.
The bigger issue, though, is isolating the crash and figuring out why it happened.
You will eventually encounter a crash, and it’s not always indicative of a larger
problem. Some crashes are just once-in-a-while sorts of problems. Here are some
basic things to look into:
4 “ Has your Mac been on for quite a while or have you been running many different
programs'/ If so, you can suspect memory fragmentation or corruption.
Eventually, every Mac needs to be restarted just to clear out RAM and begin
anew. If you don’t run many programs, your Mac may last months without a
restart, but crashing programs after a long working stint are one sign of a Mac
that’s just, well, tired.
Chapter 30 4 First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 781
4 “ Have you added anything recently? If you’ve recently installed something new,
such as a new hardware driver, a new extension, or a new application, it may
be the source of a conflict that’s suddenly causing the crashing application to
have more trouble than it has in the past. Read the program’s Read Me file
and go to the manufacturer’s Web site to check for any known
incompatibilities, and then troubleshoot conflicts as outlined in Chapter 32.
^ Have you upgraded the Mac OS recently? This may cause problems or
incompatibilities in programs that had been working well in the past. If there’s
been a recent Mac OS release, check for bug fixes and updates on the software
program publisher’s Web site or through their customer service
representatives.
4 ^ Did anything precipitate the crash? Sometimes you can pinpoint the source of
new, consistent crashes. For instance, say your Mac was hit with a power
surge or crashes spectacularly during a long file operation, a network
connection, or an Internet session. Any crash like this — especially a freeze or
a hang — can cause corruption in the desktop files, Internet preferences, or
elsewhere. This corruption can then cause crashing.
4 Is the crashing consistent? If your Mac crashes every time you try to load a
QuickTime movie over the Internet in your Web browser, you’re well on
your way to pinpointing a bug, conflict, or corruption problem that has a
definite source. It may seem like an obvious example, but crashes can be
so frustrating that you forget to make a mental or written note of what was
happening when the crash occurred. A reproducible crash is much easier
to fix.
Once you’ve done some work trying to isolate the crash, you’re on your way to
fixing the situation. The key is to decide what sort of problem is likely — bug,
conflict, or corruption. You then can put your first aid techniques to work.
Aside from general application crashes, there are some specific types of crashes —
with either particular characteristics or telltale error codes — that bear a little more
discussion.
Type 1 1 errors and "FPU not found" error messages
Although less and less frequent as the Mac OS ages, these error messages were
particularly prevalent during the transition to Power Macintosh computers and
then again to PCI-based Power Macs. The real trick to them is they don’t mean
much of anything and were for a time used as catch-alls for other problems. Some
of them related to the transition from older 68000-based programs to PowerPC-
native programs, but only barely.
782 Part IV -f IVveak and Recover the Mac OS
When you can't get rid of the error message
In an ideal world, the Mac would handle every application crash with aplomb, forcing the
errant program to quit with dignity and allowing you to move back to the Finder and save
anything that's open without too much hassle. But this is not yet a perfect world. (Rumor
has it that It will be a perfect world after Mac OS X is released, but, as of this writing, that
remains to be seen. It may be a better world, though, with protected memory and preemp-
tive multitasking giving the Mac OS more control over misbehaving programs.)
Many of your programs, when they crash, will recover to the Finder. But sometimes you'll
find that trying to dismiss an error message alert box causes more problems, such as an
error alert box that keeps reappearing. In other cases, you'll find that trying to dismiss the
error causes or is followed by a worse error.
In these situations there are three things that can happen and two things you can do to try
and head them off:
A freeze. If the Mac freezes after an error message, you can try to troubleshoot the
freeze as discussed later in this chapter. You'll likely need to restart your Mac and
move on, though.
Force Quit If an application hangs on its own after an error (or otherwise becomes
erratic), you can try to force the program to quit. The keystrokes §§-Shift-Esc will
bring up a Force Quit dialog box allowing you to manually "crash" the program and
recover to the Finder.
Endless alerts. If you can't seem to do anything about the alerts showing up over
and over again, you can try one desperate measure before throwing in the towel
and restarting -drop into the programmer's box. With the §§-Power key sequence,
you can bring up the programmer's box. Type C F and hit Return. This might recover
the Mac to the Finder, which will be very unstable but may allow you to save your
work in other applications.
Whatever you do, your goal should be to save your work and restart the Mac Any crash can
make your Mac too unstable to continue working. If you try to keep going on, you'll likely
encounter another crash or freeze within minutes.
Type 11 errors are really just “miscellaneous” errors, an error message that
occurred often when the Mac OS engineers were transitioning the Mac OS, but are
less common now that the kinks have been worked out of the PowerPC code and
any errors are mapped to other error messages. FPU error messages aren’t really
accurate, at least on PowerPC machines; they usually just mean the Mac has
jumped to an invalid memory address and is trying to work with bad data. (On pre-
PowerPC machines, they usually are actually errors with the floating point unit.)
Chapter 30 4 ^ First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 783
If you’re getting a lot of Type 1 1 or FPU-type errors on a PowerPC machine, the
chances are good that a simple Mac OS update will solve the bulk of these
problems. In Mac OS 7.6.1 and above, many of the crashes were eliminated or given
error types that were more meaningfully worded. They also don’t cause as many
forced reboots, enabling the program to quit gracefully to the Finder instead.
Type 41 errors and Finder or Bus error messages
These types of errors often occur as the Finder is loading or soon after it’s been
loaded, but before you can get much work done. They basically point to a
corrupted Finder, Finder preferences, or (occasionally) a corrupt System file on
your startup disk. Sometimes a quick restart will cause the problem to go away
for a time, but it’s often back with a vengeance.
The Finder can become corrupted as a result of a system crash, a problem with
an application, or an overall maintenance issue. Over the longer term, you should
check your hard drive for errors and look into possible conflicts on your system.
You’ll occasionally find that trouble with your hard disk driver will cause Finder
corruption.
The quick answer is a Mac OS reinstallation, or, if you have a draggable System
Folder (a complete, current Mac OS installation on CD-ROM or another removable
media), you can drag the corrupted System file to the Trash and copy a new System
file in its place.
Expert tip: System reinstallation
If it looks like the Finder and/or System are corrupt, sometimes the best thing you can do is
perform a shortcut reinstallation. A full clean install is probably the better choice, but this
shortcut is a great first aid tool that many professional Mac managers use when they need
to get their Macs up and running immediately. When you get a little down time, go back
and see if you can figure out what caused the System corruption in the first place. At that
time, you should especially consider using a disk doctor program and a clean reinstall.
But if you've got to get the Mac up quickly, try this advice from Glenn Schunemann,
Macintosh consultant for academic information technology services at the University of
Maryland, College Park:
"I've found a way to do a 'shortcut' clean system install, when an existing system is already
on the disk and the system is the cause of the problem. What I do is trash the Finder and
System file and then reinstall (not clean install) the system from CD. This way the installa-
tion has no choice but to replace the Finder and System file. This works most of the time,
and it beats the heck out of copying over all the third-party control panels and extensions!"
(See Chapter 33 for more on Mac OS installations.)
784 Part IV > Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Internet-related crashing
Did the crash occur in your Web browser? This could be a strong sign of
corruption, especially if the crashes seem to be gaining frequency and are not
necessarily reproducible. (Your first Web browser troubleshooting should probably
focus on multimedia plug-ins, which can be too soon on the market.) One symptom
of corrupt Internet preferences is crashing in multiple Internet programs — Web
browser, e-mail, FTP, and so on.
The Internet Preferences file takes a beating and Web browsers tend to crash a lot,
so the file seems to get its share of corruption. If you suspect this is the case, reach
into the Preferences folder and drag the Internet Preferences file onto the desktop
or to the Trash. Restart your Mac and run your Internet tools again.
If the crashing seems focused on the browser, you can also consider trashing the
browser's preferences and history file, and resetting the browser cache. Some users
swear that trashing the Global History file in the Netscape directory can solve prob-
lems with both Netscape and Internet Explorer if both are on the system.
You may also be able to attribute Web browser crashes to multimedia plug-ins that
are sometimes brought to market very quickly and not completely tested. (Or, they
may crash when a poorly coded Web page is encountered.) In these cases, the error
should be fairly reproducible; it occurs when your browser attempts to load a partic-
ular type of multimedia data, a Java applet, or something similar. If this is happening
and you need to get browsing quickly, you should be able to change the browser's
preferences so that it ignores the offending sort of data. Later, you should check for
updated versions of the plug-in software.
Freezes and Hangs
Usually without so much as a little bit of happy help from the Mac OS (in the form of
an error message, perhaps), a freeze simply locks up the screen so that nothing
moves; it resembles what happens to your TV when you’ve hit the Pause button on
your VCR. A true freeze will bring the mouse cursor to a screeching halt. No matter
what you do, you can’t move the mouse and no activity can take place on the screen.
A subset of these freezes is something that’s called an endless loop or a hang, a
program gets caught doing the same thing over and over again without giving much
control back to the computer or allowing you to move on to other things. That’s
really just a crash, but it can have the symptoms of a freeze: The program just sits
there. The difference Is you can usually move your mouse pointer around on the
screen, even if it doesn’t move terribly smoothly.
A freeze can be caused by any of the three major software problems (a bug, a
conflict, or corruption) but a bug is far and away the most likely cause (especially
a bug that causes a conflict). You’ll also find that the problem is often actually
triggered by a process that’s running in the background — such as the Printer
Share software, HP background printing, AppleTalk, or other networking activity.
Chapter 30 -f First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 785
Freezes are also often related to memory. If you have a program that regularly
causes freezing, one step to overcome this is to add more application RAM in its
Get Info box.
As far as first aid goes, though, there isn’t too much you can do about a freeze; you
can try to recover from it, but it’s unlikely. The real trick is to make sure you
actually know the Mac has completely frozen. Otherwise, you may be losing data
when you don’t need to, if simply out of frustration.
When it seems your Mac has frozen, perform all the following steps to make sure
it’s really a system freeze and not a hang, crash, or other problem:
1. Check your mouse, keyboard, and other ADB connections. A really good way
to emulate a freeze (and make you feel sheepish at the same time) is to kick
your ADB cabling loose, resulting in a mouse pointer that won’t move. If your
mouse or keyboard is unplugged, try plugging them back in to see if you regain
control. (Note: Apple recommends against adding ADB devices while the Mac
is powered on, although purely anecdotal evidence suggests that you probably
won’t destroy anything if you occasionally have to replug an ADB device.)
2. Watch the screen carefully to make sure you’re not seeing any activity. If
you have a menu bar clock, a visual keystroke indicator, or any icons that
generally flash but aren’t, there’s a chance that you really are experiencing
a freeze or a hang.
3. Wait. This is especially true if you’re working with high-end graphics,
animation, movies, audio, the Internet, scanning, or anything that is talking
over a network or to peripherals. In fact, anytime your Mac seems to have
crashed is a good time to get up and stretch or look into getting yourself a
refreshing beverage. Even the menu bar clock can stop updating while an
application struggles to get past something. And these apparent freezes can
last up to ten minutes or so. If you can help it, wait that long before trying to
quit the program or restart the Mac.
4. If you’re absolutely convinced the program isn’t responding, you should try
the keyboard. §§-. (period) and/or the Esc key may convince the program to
stop what it’s doing and move on. Try pressing §§-S to save your work. And try
§i-Q to get the program to quit peacefully. If that doesn’t work, try a forced
quit. Press the §§-Shift-Esc keys at the same time and attempt to bring up a
Force Quit alert box. If it appears, click the Force Quit button to attempt to
quit the application abruptly and recover to the Finder.
5. Before giving up completely, hit §§-Power. If a dialog box appears with a small
prompt, enter G F (including the space) and hit Return. This may recover you
to the Finder, or it may freeze your Mac once and for all.
6. If those don’t work, you may really be dealing with a freeze. It’s time to restart
the machine. Using the keyboard, hit Ctrl-§€-Power to force the Mac to restart
immediately. If this doesn’t work, double-check that your keyboard is
connected. (This is a great time to find out that the problem is ADB after all,
because it won’t notice the keystrokes and nothing will happen.) If all seems
correctly configured, use the Mac’s hardware reset key or button to cycle the
Mac’s power. (If your Mac has no reset button or key, turn it off and on again.
786 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
In rare cases a freeze might actually force you to unplug the Mac and plug it
back in again.)
If the force quit or any of the other measures — beyond plugging in ADB or waiting —
is successful, immediately save your work and try to restart your Mac. The system is
likely very unstable.
Once you’ve recovered from the freeze, it’s time for your detective work. You can
troubleshoot a freeze much as you would a crash, but focus on RAM issues,
conflicts (especially background and extension conflicts), and corruption in the
application or process that was running during the freeze. For instance, delete
unfinished print jobs in the PrintMonitor Documents folder (in the System Folder),
delete Finder preferences, and delete Internet preferences or others that might
have been related to the programs that were running during the freeze.
Freezes are often hardware/software conflicts, too. Troubleshoot your printing
connections, network connections, SCSI connections, and other peripherals and
peripheral drivers with help from Chapters 21 through 29 in this book. Identify the
part of the system that seems active when the bug or conflict occurs (if the freeze
is reproducible), and then look to those particular applications or subsystems as
the likely cause.
Heat and internal problems cause freezes
Your Mac is designed to run under reasonably optimum conditions and with a minimum of
modification to the Mac's case and innards. A tightly packed minitower case might have
everything you need to get by, but it also might reduce the flow of air inside the case, lead-
ing to increased heat build-up. Similar problems can result from working with your Mac at
high altitudes, above room temperature, or after a cold session in the basement or in the
trunk of your car.
You should always work with your Mac within its Ideal temperature range -usually
between about 40 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit A little hotter or cooler may not do much dam-
age, depending on other factors. But if your Mac has been exposed to extreme cold or heat,
just turning it on without allowing It to return to room temperature can damage it severely.
Overheating, especially, causes freezes and crashes. Running with a processor upgrade that
doesn't have proper heat dissipation (a heat sink or fan), leaving the case off your Mac for
extended periods, or running the Mac in a humid or hot room without decent ventilation
could all lead up to seemingly random crashes and freezes. One sign that overheating could
be causing a problem is a Mac that computes well soon after being turned on, but begins
to have unexplained crashes or freezes after 30 minutes or so of work.
Freezes can also suggest something is wrong on your logic board or with another compo-
nent in your Mac. If all else fails, consult Apple or your clone's manufacturer to see if there
are any known issues related to freezes on your particular Mac model or logic board. Make
note of the circumstances and any patterns to the freezes or crashing, to help them better
troubleshoot the issue with you.
chapter 30 -f First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 787
Bizarre Behavior
Certain problems are a bit tougher to classify, even though they’re not necessarily
impossible to track down and solve. Some of these are long-known issues, whereas
others can be symptoms of larger problems.
Icons and aliases
The classic rebuild-your-desktop scenario is brought about when your Mac begins
to inexplicably lose its unique icons or aliases begin to fail. Because of
fragmentation or other issues within the desktop database files, the icons are no
longer associated with the correct programs and documents, resulting in their use
of more generic-looking icons. Similarly, aliases tend to lose their relationship with
the original document or program as damage creeps into the desktop database.
Other symptoms of desktop database problems include slow access in the Finder,
slow startups, and slow file operations in applications. Generic document icons can
also be a sign, although some applications don’t necessarily have special icons for
their saved documents.
The answer? Rebuild the desktop. Hold down the §§-Option keys as the Mac starts
up; usually you should hold down the keys all the way through the sequence until
you see a dialog box that asks you if you want to rebuild the desktop file (see
Figure 30-2).
A
Are you sure you wont to rebuild the
desktop file on the disk “Macintosh HO"?
I Cancel 1 ll ^ ll
Figure 30-2: The Mac is responding to
a §8-Option startup request.
Choose OK and then be prepared to wait — in most cases, the bigger your drive is,
the longer this process will take.
In Mac OS 7.5 and newer, Apple recommends that you turn off most extensions in
the Extensions Manager, and then restart to rebuild the desktop. The one exception
to this is Macintosh Easy Open (or Mac OS Easy Open), which Apple recommends
you leave loaded in the Extensions Manager.
If your drive is heavily fragmented or you’re experiencing problems outside of
rebuilding the desktop, it’s a good idea to run Disk First Aid and/or a disk doctor
program before relying completely on rebuilding the desktop. The desktop
database files are likely to become corrupted again more quickly if the drive itself is
in bad shape. You should also run a disk doctor program if you find that rebuilding
the desktop doesn’t fix your generic icon issues.
788 Part IV 4 Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Another way to rebuild the desktop file — and arguably a better way — is to use
TechTool or TechTool Pro. TechTool preserves the comment fields in Get Info boxes
and completely deletes the desktop’s files in a reasonably safe way, making for a
more reliable rebuild process.
Slow startup, crashes, or freezes while word
processing
Sometimes unexplained crashes and freezes can actually be attributed to corrupt
fonts. Problems that can be attributed to this issue include unexplained crashing on
startup, crashes after a clean install (if you’ve manually copied the contents of the
previous Fonts folder to the new Fonts folder), crashes that occur as an application
starts up, or crashes when choosing fonts in an application.
If you can manage to load and isolate the problem to particular fonts that crash
your system when you switch them in an application, try to restore those fonts
from installation disks or a backup. If you can’t isolate the fonts, perform a clean
install or replace your entire font directory from a backup. You can also
troubleshoot fonts much the same way as you troubleshoot extensions, as
discussed in Chapter 32.
Slow disk, disappearing files, bad menus, beeps
If your Mac is constantly crunching the hard drive, files are disappearing,
corruption seems rampant, or the system seems almost painfully sluggish,
you’re probably dealing with a drive problem, drive fragmentation, or, perhaps, a
computer virus.
Expert tip: The why of rebuilding
So what's going on with all the desktop rebuilding and funny looking icons? Reed Jackson,
Apple Computer system engineer, gives the scoop:
"The Mac stores a files creator and type record in an invisible area of the Get Info window.
When those values change, or are not present in the file, your file may appear in icon view
as a generic, dog-eared document icon.
"To remedy this ailment, first rebuild the desktop. This process examines all of the file and
creator settings and several other values and corrects any that are misadjusted.
"Also, you can launch the application that the file was created in, and then, using the File
<>Open command, choose the file that is affected and open it. Now, save the file with a
new name, and verify that the new file has the correct custom document icon from that
application."
chapter 30 ^ First Aid for Ailing Mac Systems 789
The presence of a virus is also indicated by bizarre beeps, dialog boxes announcing
nontechnical sorts of things (such as “Merry Christmas” or “Don’t panic”), and
problems with your menus, especially in programs such as the applications in
Microsoft Office.
If Norton or TechTool can’t solve your problems, and you’ve been through the hard
drive troubleshooting tips discussed in Chapter 23, you might consider whether or
not you have a computer virus. Most Mac viruses (and there are relatively few of
them) prey on the desktop database and the file system, trying to create problems
with your folders and files.
See Chapter 31 for definitions, tips, and troubleshooting advice regarding viruses.
Summary
> Before looking at the specific software problems you’ll run up against, it’s
important to get a little technique down, as with any first aid procedure. The
splints, tourniquets, and bandages of software first aid come into play when
you’re dealing with bugs, conflicts, and corruption.
^ The different types of software issues you’ll deal with include error messages,
crashes, freezes, and just plain strange behavior. Although all of these can be
caused by hardware issues, there are certain symptoms that suggest very
clearly that you have a software problem that needs to be addressed.
^ Error messages can be pretty straightforward, although error codes that
show up in those messages aren’t always useful. Most of the codes are really
designed for programmers who are debugging their programs. Once the
program is released to the general public, the codes can be less useful. Still,
there are general things you can learn about the codes to help you
troubleshoot.
4 Crashes and freezes can be frustrating, but you can deal with a lot of them
through some clever elimination. It’s important to get to the source of the
problem, and then determine what sort of problem is causing the crash and
whether or not you can isolate and reproduce it. Of course, your first aid issue
might just be that you need to get the computer running again — there’s a
right way to do that, as well.
-f The rest of the software problems you’ll encounter can be a little odd at first,
but these quirks are facts of life on the Mac platform. If your Mac is acting a
little strange, there are a couple of symptoms you can look for that will help
you determine why.
Clean and
Maintain Your
Mac OS
any problems you encounter can be solved by
I W ■ regularly maintaining your system with hard-disk
tools, virus protection, and a backup plan. If you keep up with
these three things, you’re likely to have fewer problems than if
you simply use your Mac without regard for maintenance. The
process certainly doesn’t need to be exhausting, although you
do need to be thorough. In fact, the best w^ay to achieve
harmonic system maintenance levels is to create a schedule
and stick to it.
Obviously this chapter includes a little upgrading advice; you
need to get a disk doctor program such as Norton Utilities or
Micromat TechTool 2. Check to see which is most compatible
with your system and the latest Mac OS upgrade. Each has its
own specialty, with Norton focused on crash and file-
corruption prevention, and TechTool focused on providing a
total solution for your Mac’s troubleshooting tasks.
As you’ll see by the end of this chapter, you need a good virus
checker. I make some recommendations later, but 1 want to
mention up front that a virus checker is a good idea,
especially if you use your Mac for business or education (and
losing your data would be costly) and/or you spend a lot of
time on the Internet.
^ ^ ^ 4 ^
In This Chapter
Regular maintenance
and care
Spring cleaning your
system
Optimizing your
drives
Checking and
removing viruses
4 ^ > > 4 ^
Regular Maintenance and Care
You should follow a pretty straightforward checklist to
maintain a happy, working Mac system. Aside from some of
792 Part IV 4- TvMeak and Recover the Mac OS
the tips elsewhere in the book (correct installations, avoiding conflicts, upgrading,
and working with the latest programs and software drivers), the most important
thing you can do to keep your Mac running flawlessly is to create a schedule of
maintenance and stick to that plan. In many cases, you might even be able to get
your software to do it for you (see Figure 31-1).
Figure 31-1: Norton Utilities includes tools that
enable you to automate certain maintenance tasks.
Scheduled care
What are the things you should do? Til discuss two types of maintenance: the dally
stuff and the time-based issues. Dally, you should do the following when you’re
working with your Mac:
^ Turn the computer on and off no more than once a day. If you want to turn it on
in the morning and off in the evening, fine. Otherwise, you’ll extend its life by
leaving it turned on; just turn off the monitor (or set it to Sleep mode in the
Energy Saver control panel) to conserve energy.
4 When shutting down or restarting the computer, use the Special menu
commands. On many Macs you can use the Power key to shut down, too, but
the point is this: Don’t just kill the power, turn off your surge protector, or
throw the power switch. This keeps the Mac from shutting down In an orderly
way, including writing some last-minute files and closing everything out before
restarting or shutting down.
4 Restart occasionally. If you use many different applications and documents in
one computing session, it’s a good idea to restart your machine occasionally
to guard against memory fragmentation and subsequent crashes. If you
restart when you come back from lunch, for instance, or before switching
over to a marathon Web session, you might encounter fewer unexpected
crashes and restarts.
chapter 31 4 Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 793
4 “ Maintain files and check drive space. It may seem silly, but it’s actually a good
idea to make a point of deleting files, throughout the day, instead of putting it
off until you can sit down and delete in one session. The reasoning here is it
helps to keep your drive from filling up, which can cause errors and crashes if
temporary files and data documents suddenly can’t be written to a full disk.
It’s also a bit easier to manage your Mac that way.
.lust doing these things will help keep you up and running on a regular basis, but
you can do more to ensure a relatively error-free computing existence. Each of the
following tasks has a recommended frequency; you may not need to do them quite
as often, but it’s certainly a good idea. Indeed, you might find it’s useful to set a
calendar program or alarm clock to remind yourself to do these things — if your
disk doctor program doesn’t do it for you.
4 A few times a week: Back up your hard drive(s) or your network according
to a preplanned rotation. (See Chapter 7 for more on backup planning.)
^ Every week: If you spend a lot of time downloading files, transferring
documents, or working with files from the Internet or an online service, it’s
a good idea to run a virus-checking program once a week. You should also
update the virus definitions by downloading them every month to every
three months from your virus-protection software publisher’s Web site.
4 * Every month: Rebuild the desktop file. This will keep it from getting out of
control and causing trouble that eventually requires a disk-fixing session or
worse.
> Every three months: Check the level of fragmentation on your hard drive and
defragment if necessary. Defragmenting not only optimizes the drive for
speed, it guards against potential problems. A heavily fragmented drive can
lead to file corruption.
4 Every three months: Do a little seasonal cleaning (or spring cleaning) to your
drive, archiving and/or deleting files you don’t need on the drive or don’t
need at all. This includes preferences files and other system-level stuff that
may just be taking up space. (Spring cleaning is discussed later in this
chapter.)
There's actually a product called Spring Cleaning, from Aladdin Systems
(WWW. al addi nsys . com/), which does this same sort of thing by helping you track
down superfluous preference files, uninstall unwanted programs, and generally give
your Mac the once-over to report on any files or configurations that could be cleaned
up on your Mac.
4 ^ Every three months: Hold a special Web surfing session during which you
check for updates to your favorite software by surfing the software
publisher’s Web sites. This includes your virus definition files if you have a
virus-protection program.
794 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
> Every six months: Perform a major hard-drive maintenance session, including
a complete check of the disk (boot from another drive or a floppy), an update
to the Mac OS if it’s available (and reportedly free of major bugs), and an
update to your hard-disk driver, if necessary.
> Every one to two years: Perform a clean install of the Mac OS. If you have a
new version of the OS or you’re installing a new hard drive, that’s a great time
to clean install, especially because you may need to troubleshoot your
extensions anyway after installing a new version of the Mac OS. (This isn’t
always true, but you should check the Read Me file and proceed with caution.)
Even if you’re not upgrading, it’s a good idea to reinstall every few years just
to clean things up a bit.
This checklist alone should keep your Mac out of trouble, most of the time. With a
solid maintenance schedule, you’ll find that the only problems that crop up will be
hardware failures and problems that you expect, such as slight file corruption,
minor fragmentation, and the occasional virus. In any case, you’re prepared and
ready to deal with these minor evils.
The other side of maintenance: Hardware
Most of the maintenance discussed in this chapter covers software. However, it's also a
good idea to adopt a maintenance routine for your hardware, too.
The items to concentrate on most are those that move -the keyboard, mouse, and perhaps
your printer. Your keyboard and mouse can probably use cleanings once a month or so; a
trackball can usually use a little more cleaning (at least pull the ball and blow out any dust
or dirt). See Chapter 24 for more on cleaning input devices. Obviously, you should clean
your monitor whenever it needs it. Use the special solutions described in Chapter 25.
The inside of your computer might be able to do with an occasional dusting— every six
months to a year depending on how clean the area is around your Mac. Although you
shouldn't blow compressed air directly on the circuit boards inside your Mac, you can use a
small vacuum cleaner designed for use around electronics. You should also try to clean out
the power supply fan (don't open the power supply- just vacuum the back of it) and clean
any dust away from ports on the back of the Mac.
In the same time frame, it's a good idea to dust or vacuum your scanner, printer's paper
tray, and the power supplies for external hard drives, and even run a commercial disk
cleaner through the floppy drive and make good use of a CD-ROM cleaner. And while
you're at it, you might as well do what you can to arrange that jumble of power cables and
connectors.
Chapter 3 1 Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 795
Spring cleaning
Over time the Mac OS and its subsidiary files simply begin to bloat. Old
applications leave Read Me files, SimpleText versions, and preferences files littered
all over the drive. Programs install fonts you don’t really want or need. Temporary
document files get left in your document directories. Even saved game documents
start to take up unwanted space.
Eventually, these small files will cause fragmentation and the sheer volume of them
will give you all sorts of headaches, including less room for your new stuff,
important temporary files. Virtual Memory, and other things that together can
cause a few crashes. You should take the time to run through your hard drive once
a season to see if you can’t find some stuff that’s worth deleting.
Duplicate applications
To begin your spring cleaning ritual, use the Find File command in the Finder to
gather together duplicate files and see how many you can do away with. Different
programs tend to come with their own versions of some old standards, and you
may find you have a certain number of the same files or applications inhabiting
your drive (see Figure 31-2).
Figure 31-2: Using Find File you can see how many
files or documents are wasting space on your hard drive.
Want to know some of the common culprits? Because many of these files are
distributed and installed by a number of manufacturers (as part of bundling
agreements and other arrangements), Fd put even money on the likelihood that you
have the following duplicate files on your drive:
796 Part IV ^ T\A^eak and Recover the Mac OS
4^ SimpleText
4 Stuffit Expander
4* DropStuff with Expander Enhancer
4 Internet Config
4 TeachText
4 MoviePlayer
♦ HyperCard Player
4 QuickTime Plug-in for Web browsers
You may encounter others. The point is you can probably do just fine with only one
copy of each of these programs. Using Find File and the Finder, check each file to
see which is the most recent copy (you can use the File«t> Get Info command to find
out what the version number of each is) and delete the rest.
Preferences, fonts, and extensions
The next step is to comb through the System Folder and look for duplicates or
leftovers that are ready to be trashed. One of the prime possibilities is the
Preferences folder, where nearly every application you ever install and run on your
Mac will place one or more files. When you delete the application, you may be
surprised to know that the preferences file will stick around forever — or at least
until you clean the folder manually.
Gathering preferences files for deletion is an inexact science — I generally run
through and delete any files that I recognize and can absolutely say that 1 won’t be
using the associated application anymore. If IVe deleted the application, the
preferences file can go, too.
Of course, if there’s a file in there that doesn’t look familiar or you think might be
necessary, by all means skip it. Deleting preferences files is really just a quick way
to get back some file-storage space and avoid a slight possibility of corruption due
to drive fragmentation — leaving a few extra preferences files won’t do any harm.
Once you’ve moved on from preferences, you can do the same thing with your
Fonts folder and the Extensions (Disabled) and Control Panels (Disabled) folder. If
you see extensions in those folders that are no longer necessary (for example, they
worked with an application that you’ve deleted or hardware you’re not using
anymore) you can toss them, too, and save some more storage space. Fonts are a
special case; the fewer fonts you have in the Fonts folder, the faster your Mac will
boot and applications that use the fonts will start up. It’s always a good idea to
clean out the Fonts folder of any fonts you never use. (You can also boot a little
faster if you combine your existing fonts into fewer font suitcases, as described in
Chapter 26.)
Want to see what the font looks like? In the Finder, you can double-click a font
suitcase to see a visual representation of the font, as shown in Figure 31-3.
Chapter 31 ^ Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 797
Figure 31-3: You can check out the font before trashing it
You should also consider organizing your fonts into suitcases, as described in Chapter
26, to keep things orderly and under control in the Font folder.
Evangelista tip: Don't trick your Mac out
Some of the best advice is the most simple. While you're going through this spring cleaning
process, you might also take careful inventory of your System Folder and decide what,
exactly, you need on your Mac to survive. A program such as InformlNIT, on the CD-ROM
included with this book, might help.
Or, you can go to an extreme. How about using only Mac OS extensions? It's possible you
could get away with it, or something close. (That'll mean staying away from Global Village
products, Microsoft software, 3Dfx, PC networking, and non-Apple printers and hard drives,
among some other interesting programs.) Here's a tip direct from Evangelista Allan
Schwartz (wwv/ . concentri c . net/~Ams):
"Extension (init) conflicts can potentially waste a lot of your time. Should you ever use
third-party inits? My philosophy is if it's unlikely that Apple Quality Assurance has tested an
init as part of their release cycle QA, I don't want to use it - 1 don't want to have to test it
"Sometimes, I fix severe system problems by dragging the System Folder into the trash and
reinstalling from the 7.6 CD. It's helpful not to have too much investment in System Folder
customization."
Sound good to you? If you're serious about it, you'll probably want to follow the Evangelista
tips in Chapter 32 that recommend using Labels to track file changes in your System Folder.
Then every few weeks, tool through your Extensions and Control Panels folders to make
sure no errant application has installed something new. If it has, you'll have to pull it and try
to do without the application at fault, or make an exception in this one case. (Remember,
some games and multimedia titles will drop in extensions, too. Maybe you can leave them
in until you're done with the game, and then toss 'em!)
798 Part IV -f Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Temporary files
Applications on your Mac will often take advantage of a hidden folder, called
Temporary Items, that resides on your hard drive. It’ll store in that folder
temporary files that are on as the Mac is being used and the application is open.
For the most part, there’s really no point in mucking around in that directory.
However, sometimes those temporary files will escape and end up saved on your
hard drive, either in the Trash (as rescued items) or in your documents directory
as work files that got saved when the application experienced a crash or some
other oddity.
In any case, after awhile these files can start to pile up a bit. They’re usually ripe for
deletion; you either needed to dig into the file or you didn’t. If you didn’t, and the
file has gotten on in age, maybe it’s okay to delete it.
There’s no particular standard for naming temporary files; you can try “temp,”
“work,” and similar words in a Find File search. You should also comb through your
document folders (especially when you’re getting ready to archive and delete them)
and look for temporary files that can be deleted so your compressed archives or
backups take up less storage space.
Attachments and downloads
Another place to look for potential spring cleaning victims is in any directory
that stores e-mail attachments or downloads you’ve received over the Internet or
through an online service. (Check your e-mail program’s folder, your Web browser’s
folder, and online services’ folders such as those for AOL and CompuServe.) You’ll
find you’ve often already read, installed, used, or otherwise dealt with an
attachment, yet it lingers in a download or attachment folder on your hard drive for
quite some time — if not forever. Some e-mail programs are set to automatically
delete these downloads after a certain amount of time, but others might not have
any plans for these files.
In Find File, use “attach” or “download” as a keyword and search for files and/or
folders that have these files in them. Check the dates carefully and be sure you
don’t delete anything important.
You should also travel individually to your e-mail program’s storage folders; they
may be in the System Folder, in the application’s folder, or even in the Preferences
folder. In those folders you may find extra files — attachments, cache files, old
mail — that are ready to be deleted. While you’re busy doing these things, you
might want to stop by the Preferences or Options menu in your e-mail and online
programs to see if you can tell it to delete downloads after a certain amount of time.
Chapters! 4^ Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 799
Deleting applications
Part of your spring cleaning might involve getting rid of any applications you no
longer need on the system. This might be an older version that you’ve upgraded or
a program that you’ve decided didn’t suit your needs.
Deleting an application involves more than simply taking the application folder and
dragging it to the Trash. You’ll want to think about a few other issues, too, including
the following:
Do you have any documents currently stored in the application’s folder that
you’d like to keep? Make sure you don’t have anything else important in that
folder or a subfolder, either.
^ Do you have some means of translating the documents you are keeping? If
you’re deleting Microsoft Word, for instance, make sure your copy of
ClarisWorks (AppleWorks) or Nisus Writer can translate all those Word
documents you held onto.
4- Is there a Read Me file or a manual that tells you what files the program
installed on your system? Applications can install extra folders (such as the
Microsoft Office folder on many Macs), put stuff in the System Folder (such as
the Claris folder), or install extensions or control panels that work with the
application. Try to round all of these up when you’re planning to throw away
the application.
4 Did the program have a preferences file? If so, grab it from the Preferences
folder.
One trick I recommend: If you’re serious about deleting the application, create a
folder and place it on your desktop or on the main level of your hard drive. Call it
“Files to Delete’’ or whatever you like. Put all the files related to this application that
you’re extracting from your drive into this folder. Now compute for a few days.
If things start to go nuts (and you haven’t changed anything else), you may need to
replace one of the extensions, preferences, or other files you thought you were
supposed to delete; it may turn out it wasn’t part of this application’s installation
after all. Plus, this system gives you a week or so to use the application again if you
find a document hiding somewhere that requires it.
Otherwise, drag the Files to Delete folder to the Trash and choose Special O Empty
Trash to delete it!
800 Part IV 4- IVveak and Recover the Mac OS
Defragmenting and optimizing
When you’ve used your hard drive for a number of weeks or months, it can begin to
get fragmented. This fragmentation is a result of the way the Mac stores files on a
hard drive. While it still can (that is, while there’s still free and open space on the
hard drive), the file will be written contiguously — the whole file will be written to
one section of the drive. But if there isn’t a large enough area on the drive, the file
will have to be broken up into smaller pieces to be stored on the drive. The Mac
will keep track of the pieces so it can find them again later.
This doesn’t necessarily have to happen when the drive is almost full. It can happen
on a drive that’s only half full if the drive is fragmented enough. The fragmentation
is the result of files being saved to the drive, and then moved or deleted from that
drive. When the files are deleted, a new hole is created where that file used to be.
To further illustrate, imagine yourself in a public library. Because library patrons
rarely take home entire shelves of books, they open up small holes on shelves all
around the library when they check out books. Even if the library gets to where it’s
only half-full of books, the shelves are limited to the size of books (or number of
contiguous books, such as an entire series of encyclopedias) that would fit into a
particular opening.
Fragments of space are what make up the drive’s fragmentation level. If the drive is
unfragmented, an entire file can load immediately after it’s found by the hard
drive’s read head. Fragmentation forces the hard drive read head to spin up and
seek out many different parts of the drive to load one particular file. As a result,
access slows down, sometimes considerably.
All of this seeking and spinning also makes for more opportunities for an error to
occur, which can result in file corruption or parts of a file being lost because the
Mac’s desktop database (where this data is stored) becomes too bloated, slow, or
fragmented itself.
Note
As with any sort of hard disk maintenance, it’s a good idea to disable file sharing and
print sharing on a particular Mac if you normally allow people to log into the com-
puter. Network users are unlikely to do damage, but it’s possible they could interfere
with the disk fixing or defragmentation problem.
Defragment the drive
You should regularly defragment your hard drive every three months or so. During
the process, a disk doctor application reads the fragmented parts of files, and then
writes them back to the drive in a more contiguous manner. It cycles through the
entire drive, finding ways to write the files and rewrite them so that the puzzle
comes together and most, if not all, of the files are written contiguously.
Chapter 31 4 * Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 30 1
Most defragmenting programs give you the opportunity to choose how meticulous
you want the defragmentation process to be — that is, if you want it to be done
quickly for minimal results or if it should be an intensive session that results in
nearly 100 percent defragmentation. The latter is certainly recommended when you
have the time, although partial defragmentation is OK for maintenance purposes
(see Figure 3M).
Figure 31-4: Defragmenting a drive to speed it up and keep files
a little more secure
Most of these programs will enable you to ascertain the drive’s level of
fragmentation before going through the optimization process; if the drive is heavily
fragmented, the program may also recommend that you run the file saver or disk-
fixer portion of the program to make sure the fragmentation hasn’t already created
errors. After the drive is fixed, you can defragment the drive and swear to maintain
it more closely.
Note
If you have a drive that's been formatted using the Mac OS Extended (HFS Plus) for-
mat, you need to use a defragmentation tool that's been designed for that type of
drive. Older versions of Norton Utilities and other programs can damage these drives
if used on the newer format. Make sure you have an updated version of Norton
Utilities, TechTool Pro, or whatever other tool you use for defragmentation that specif-
ically claims to be HFS Plus-compatible. Plus Optimizer, another tool from Alsoft
(WWW. a1 soft . com/), is specifically designed to work with HFS Plus disks.
802 Part IV > Tvueak and Recover the Mac OS
Optimize the drive
If you have time this session, you can also choose to have your defragmentation
program optimize the drive, which is simply an extension (a little more time
consuming) of the standard defragmenting process. When you choose to optimize
a hard drive, the program not only writes the files contiguously, it actually
writes them in a special order, according to a special algorithm created by the
programmers. This scheme for optimizing can even be geared toward a particular
type of application to help you get the most performance out of your drive
(see Figure 31-5).
Figure 31-5: Norton Utilities enables you to optimize the drive for a number of
different purposes and applications.
For instance, an optimization scheme might write all the documents in one section
of the drive and all the applications in another, or it might do a quick optimization
that simply creates a large contiguous space — perfect for multimedia files that
need to be digitized from an audio or video source.
If you have Norton Utilities or another disk doctor program that can perform opti-
mizations, look carefully at the different optimization schemes it offers. Some of them
can be very useful for a particular situation, such as optimizing the drive for CD-ROM
mastering or for software development. You can also choose more general uses for
every day optimization.
Chapter 31 -f Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 803
Evangelistas and Experts: Optimizing
Although defragmenting is generally considered a good idea, people certainly don't always
agree on how to go about optimizing -or if one should do it at all. Rich Voelker of Voelker
Research thinks an optimization is of dubious value. In fact, he advises avoiding just about
any process that spends too much time rearranging important files on your hard drive.
Instead, he says, the best way to optimize or defragment a drive (although it may be some-
what impractical) is to back up the entire drive, format it, and then copy all your files back
from the backup media. That way the Mac can lay everything down in a defragmented
state, without fear of data loss. And you don't even have to buy a special program.
Other tips have come in from Evangelistas around the world, with their own opinions on
defragmentation and optimization. In all cases, don't forget that a backup is a good idea:
"I use Turbo Disk from the Turbo Toolkit (FWB) to optimize my hard disk. With a cleaned up
System Folder, the Mac boots much quicker. For this optimization, it is necessary to run
Turbo Disk from a secondary bootable drive or volume. The manual explains how to copy
Turbo Toolkit to a secondary bootable device, and temporarily make the secondary device
the startup volume in the Startup Disk control panel. There's an easier way, however. As
you're booting, with the secondary device turned on, press Shift-Option-§g-Delete. This
temporarily boots the Mac from an alternate startup disk, without the need to reset the
original boot disk. Once the Mac starts up from this alternate disk, press Shift. This turns all
extensions off, which is important because an extension can interfere with the optimization
process and freeze Turbo Disk. This results in a system halt and, most probably, the risk of
some files getting corrupted." — George Pluimakers
"I'm a hard-drive crasher because of two things. First, I use the Internet constantly and sec-
ond, I don't do enough disk repairs and defrags. Think of it this way. Every time you write
and erase a file, you have a chance of messing up your hard drive. Internet usage is about
as heavy of a write/erase scenario as the normal user can come up with. So, 1 use a multi-
tiered approach to minimize my crashes. The idea is this: If I mess up the file directory of
one hard disk partition, I don't lose the other partitions due to file directory problems.
"I've partitioned my hard drive into three partitions: One is my boot drive and application
drive. The second contains all my documents and work (which makes backing up critical
files a snap). The third has all my Internet software, downloads, and caches. I run Norton
Utilities now, and regularly fix the tiny problems that crop up. Because my drive is parti-
tioned, I only have to do this regularly on my third partition. This saves a lot of time. Finally,
I use a RAM disk for my Web browsing cache. It's a bit faster than getting the info off of the
hard drive, but more importantly, if I do have a problem, I don't get phantom cache files
anymore that are half-written or half-deleted. I find that my regular Web pages are news-
related and change regularly anyway, so I don't mind not having my cache on disk from
startup to startup." -Jon Steltenpohl
804 Part iV 4 IVueak and Recover the Mac OS
Viruses
Historically, the Mac has only had to deal with a relatively small percentage of
viruses compared to the number that have been created to infect Intel-compatible
computers. In fact, there’s a certain line of thinking out there that says Mac users
are almost so statistically unlikely to encounter a virus that making a big deal out of
them is unimportant.
Tm not quite in that camp. For one thing, the fast and furious pace at which the
Internet is becoming a part of most Mac owners’ computing experience makes for a
solid opportunity to distribute viruses. And the Mac isn’t exactly impervious; the
lack of viruses is probably more the result of a lack of interest than it is in the
security of the operating system or some other inherent Mac advantage. There are
more viruses on the Intel-compatible PC platform because there are more
computers to infect, thereby allowing these virus authors to cause more trouble.
However, more viruses are appearing on the Macintosh — specifically, viruses that
are cross-platform. The Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications macro viruses
(probably the type you’re most likely to encounter in the near future) can hop right
from a Windows-based PC onto a Macintosh running Microsoft Office. It’s likely that
other cross-platform viruses, perhaps written to exploit holes in Java (a technology
that allows programs to run on many different operating systems) or other cross-
platform solutions will be just as capable of infecting the Mac as any other
computers.
So, the threat is real. My Mac has gotten only a few viruses that I’m aware of, and all
of them (again, all the viruses I’ve caught) were either Microsoft macro viruses or
viruses specific to a particular application (for instance, Hypercard-based viruses).
Other than that. I’ve been lucky. Still, surfing the Internet, sharing floppies,
swapping Zip disks, and sitting on a large computer network are all high-risk
activities that leave you more susceptible to viruses.
what is a virus?
First and foremost, a virus is a program, and its main goal is to replicate itself as
much as it possibly can. It wants to copy itself onto new hard drives, new
removable media, and new computers over networks. Viruses are often designed
to infect low-level operating system code so that they can self-replicate whenever
certain commands are invoked on the computer or when a particular event, such
as a new floppy disk being inserted or a new computer appearing on the network.
Viruses can be malicious, but they don’t have to be. Many viruses are relatively
harmless; they self-replicate and try to distribute themselves to more and more
computers, but then at some prescribed date and time, they pop up season’s
Chapter 31 ^ Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 805
greetings or peace messages on screen. Still other viruses are designed to be
annoying by moving the cursor around the screen, popping up dialog boxes, or
affecting the display. Of course, these can still cause problems as there’s a good
chance they’ll crash an application or the entire system, potentially affecting data.
The worst viruses are those that attempt to destroy data and files on your Mac.
These viruses may try to infect the hard disk driver software, the system software,
or even the desktop database. They erase files, mess up your folders, and attack
the disk’s structure itself, introducing errors. In some cases, they can manage to
erase or mangle your entire hard drive. It’s very rare that this happens, especially
on a Mac, but it can happen. (See Table 31-1 for a list of some Mac viruses.)
Table 31-1
Sample Macintosh Viruses
Virus
What It Does
Autostart 9805
Exploits a hole in QuickTime to copy itself to available disk volumes, and
then creates invisible files on the hard drive. Causes extensive disk or
network activity and can overwrite some files with bad data. (Technically a
worm, not a virus — see the sidebar "Non-viruses: Other malicious code.")
Code 252
Infects applications and some system files. Displays a message that says
"You have a virus. Ha Ha Ha. Now erasing all disks...[etc.]" before deleting
Itself. Does no other damage on purpose, although it can crash the
machine and cause damage.
Init 17
Displays the message "From the depths of Cyberspace." It's been known
to do some damage, especially to 68000-based Macs.
Init 29
Infects all types of files and spreads rapidly on the system. May display the
following message when a disk is inserted in the floppy drive: "The disk
needs minor repairs. Do you want to repair it?" Can cause many
unintentional problems.
Init 1984
On Friday the 13th, the virus damages files by renaming them, changing
file dates and sometimes deleting files. Infects system extensions only.
(Init-M is a similar virus.)
nVIR B
Infects applications and the System file, but does no significant damage.
Has a number of strains, including AIDS, CLAP, Hpat, Jude, nFlu. Will
sometimes beep or say "Don't panic" If speech is enabled.
MDEF
Infects the System file, doing no Intentional damage. Can cause crashes.
Has a number of strains, including Garfield, Top Cat, C, D.
T4
May keep extensions from loading or make the hard drive unbootable
(depending on the version number). Strains include A, B, and C.
Zuc
Causes the mouse pointer to move around on the screen whenever the
mouse is held down and an infected application is running. Only infects
applications.
806 Part IV 4- Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Non-viruses: Other malicious code
Along with viruses, which are self-replicating programs that attach themselves to other pro-
grams, there are two other major types of problem programs -Trojan horses and worms. A
Trojan horse is rogue code that (probably) does something malicious, but is disguised as a
program that does something interesting. An example would be a program that says it will
get you free Internet access but actually erases your hard drive when executed.
Worms are even more like viruses -the/ re self-replicated, but they don't attach themselves
to programs. Like viruses, they're sometimes malevolent and sometimes they don't do
much of anything. An example of a worm is the AutoStart 9805 worm, which has just been
discovered at the time of writing.
The Autostart 9805 worm only affects Power Macintosh systems. Using the AutoStart fea-
ture in QuickTime 2.0, 2.5 and 3.0, the worm launches itself when an infected disk or other
media is mounted on the Mac's desktop. If that Mac isn't already infected, the worm copies
itself to the Extensions folder as a program called Desktop Printer Spooler. Now whenever
the Mac is restarted, this worm program is run.
After infecting all the drives it can, the worm looks for files ending with "data", "cod", and
"csa". When a targeted file is found, it is damaged by the worm overwriting the data fork
with random data. The current workaround is to disable AutoStart in the QuickTime control
panel, although the major Mac virus detectors are capable of detecting and destroying
the worm.
What's not a virus?
There are a number of hoaxes out there that seem to be forever circulating on the
Internet. Some people compare them to “urban legends”: stories such as the one
about the little boy who wants postcards before he dies from leukemia or the
frantic warnings about body parts being farmed by prostitutes. These chain-mail
type ventures are very popular in e-mail.
Some of these e-mail hoaxes show up in the form of virus alerts that have been
released by the U.S. government, Microsoft, a university, or some other
organization that seems credible. Surprisingly, most of the alerts IVe read have
glaring misspelling and grammatical errors that seem to indicate that they’re
hoaxes, but that deters few people.
When one of these notices arrives in your In box, don’t forward it, and don’t believe
it. Unless you’ve heard otherwise from a very reliable source, the following
statements will always be true about viruses:
"f Regular, text e-mail messages cannot be infected with a virus.
Chapter 31 4* Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 807
4 A virus is almost always distributed by attaching itself to a program, which
can be an attachment to an e-mail message. The infected program must be
executed, however, before the virus can infect anything.
4 Unless it’s exploiting a security hole in your Web browser, a virus can’t be
executed simply by loading a particular Web page.
You really shouldn’t worry at all about the possibility that a virus is being
transmitted through an e-mail message. Instead, you should focus on being sure
that files you download from Internet sites and unsolicited e-mail attachments don’t
have viruses. (You can also suspect a floppy disk given to you by a colleague or
friend if viral symptoms show up in your Mac.) Get a good virus-protection program
and scan files you think may be a problem before you launch them.
You'll hear many pundits say that a text e-mail can never be infected with a virus. And,
in the current state of technology, that's completely accurate. The problem I have with
this blanket statement, though, is it's always possible that some form of scripting or
macro language will be popularly instituted by e-mail programs, at which time a virus
infection -such as by the Word macro virus -may be possible. Javascript, for
instance, is a scripting language that consists of text commands embedded in Web
pages. These commands turn Web pages into running programs. As long as the host
applications themselves remain secure (Web browsers won't allow anything but the
most innocuous data to be saved and executed on your Mac by a remote site), you
won't have any problems. But if an e-mail application comes along that processes
text-based scripting instructions and allows access to the user's hard drive (through a
bug or by mistake, as with Word Basic), e-mail messages could, ultimately, contain
viruses or Trojan horses.
viral symptoms
Although virus authors tend to do their best to hide their viruses (at least until they
want them to be found through a dialog box or file damage), there are some
symptoms that you can associate with a virus, assuming you’ve eliminated other
troubleshooting possibilities. Although you should always have a virus checker
handy, especially to investigate odd behavior, remember that it’s far more likely
that your problem is related to an extension or hardware conflict, program bug, or
file corruption.
That said, here are some symptoms that might suggest a viral infection:
4 You experience seemingly automated behavior on your Mac that can’t
otherwise be explained (such as files moving on their own, the mouse pointer
being affected, dialog boxes appearing).
4 A launched program doesn’t appear or appears after a significant and unusual
delay.
4 The system unexpectedly restarts after accepting a disk, running a program,
or mounting a removable media disk.
808 Part IV 4- Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
4 Extensive, unexplained disk activity occurs, especially when no programs are
running and/or when the Mac has been started with extensions off.
4 Files and folders become corrupted or disappear.
4 File sizes, creation dates, names, or other file details change automatically.
In general, these situations describe the action of viruses at the Mac OS level.
Program-level viruses do more specific things, usually messing with your ability to
use that program. HyperCard viruses infect HyperCard programs, for instance,
whereas Word Basic viruses affect your ability to use Microsoft Word correctly.
Detection and cleaning
If youVe a high-risk, connected Mac user, you should consider getting yourself a
virus-protection program. These programs generally run in the background,
checking files as they appear on your hard drives or in a removable media device.
You can also program them to check for viruses at specific times during the day
and/or week. Popular antivirus programs include the following:
4 Symantec (www . Symantec . com), makers of Symantec Anti-Virus for Macintosh
4 Network Associates (www . na i . com), makers of VirusScan for Macintosh
4 Dr. Solomon’s (www . dr sol omon . com), makers of Virex for Macintosh (Dr.
Solomon’s has recently be bought by Network Associates, so this URL may
change at some point.)
When a virus-protection program detects an infected file, it will generally try to
isolate that file by letting you know it has a problem and, sometimes, giving you the
option of moving the file perhaps to a folder of Infected files to help you keep track
of them).You then have the option of simply deleting the files and restoring them
from a backup (after testing the backup for viruses) or trying to clean the virus
from the infected file.
Cleaning is something you should worry about only if you absolutely must have the
file’s contents — otherwise. I’d recommend deleting and then restoring the file,
because most Infected files are applications or system files that can be replaced. If
the infected file is a document, you might be desperate to get it clean. Run the virus
cleaner and see what happens.
Should you run the virus program all the time to check files? If it annoys you, I
recommend you back off to scheduled virus sweeps that occur once or twice a
week, as long as they work logically within your backup schedule. (May sure you
rotate your backups so that viruses can be dealt with using backup copies of
documents and applications.) If you don’t mind the additional protection, keep the
virus program running. It can’t hurt.
Chapter 31 > Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 809
The only thing that can hurt is not updating your virus definitions. The major virus-
protection publishers come out with updates every few months (sometimes every
month) that include more virus definitions, better weapons, and protection from
new viruses. Stop by the virus program publisher’s site and update frequently.
Word Basic viruses
The Word Basic macro viruses are a strain that infect Word documents by
infiltrating the Normal template. Using Word’s built-in customization and macro
abilities, these viruses subtly change Word’s behavior, causing both minor and
major problems. What’s worse, you’re only likely to discover this after the virus has
been in Word for a while, possibly even spreading the virus by distributing infected
documents.
Actually, these macros are often called Visual Basic for Applications macros because
they can affect a few different Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Excel.
Although the Word macro viruses are much more pen/asive, you may find that an
occasional Excel document acts oddly. Check that document with a virus checker.
The regular Concept virus — the first one to really appear on the scene — forces
your documents to be saved as templates, which are difficult to work with. The
virus remains in the newly saved template file, infecting the next computer to which
the file is transmitted.
The solution is to download the Macro Virus Protection Tool from Microsoft’s Web
site. (Try mi crosof t . com/macword and look for a link to the downloads.) Run the
tool according to the instructions that come with it. This tool basically adds a
capability to Word that prohibits macros from automatically running if they’re in
new documents. Now, whenever a file comes up with a macro attached to it, a
dialog box will appear that allows you to save the file again, while Word strips the
macro from it.
This capability is built into Word 98. By default. Word 98 will ask you if you want to
run macros embedded in a Word document. If you don't know why the document
would have macros (or if the document is othenA/ise foreign to you), choose not to
load them.
Unfortunately, that solution doesn’t work well for another strain, the CAP virus,
because it manages to infiltrate the Normal template itself, intercepting any
attempts to alter the templates attached to files — which means the Microsoft virus
protection tool can’t even be loaded.
To get around this one, you’ll need to be a little creative:
1. Close Word.
2. Find the Templates folder and move the Normal template to the desktop.
3. Restart Word.
810 Part IV 4 IVveak and Recover the Mac OS
4. Use the File O Open command to find the document you want to load.
5. When you find the file, hold down the Shift key and click Open.
6. Keep the Shift key down as the file loads (this disables macros).
7. Save the file with a new name.
8. Delete the file.
This works great when it works, but even newer strains seem to affect the Shift key
macro disabling, making it impossible to load a cleaned version of the file. The only
solution seems to be to drag out the Normal template, and then avoid loading the
infected files into Word. The next time you open Word, a clean Normal template will
be created, and you can go on about your business. Meanwhile, toss the infected
documents.
If you don’t toss those documents, don’t ever open the infected documents again in
Word 6.0. You’ll also need to search your drive and find any documents that have
turned into Microsoft Word Template files (*.dot) instead of regular Microsoft Word
files (*.doc). Check the icon, which is slightly different for a template file.
If you absolutely must get the data out of the documents, you might try copying
and pasting the document’s contents into a different application, and then cleaning
out the Normal template and going from there. Or, open the file through
ClarisWorks and let it (or MacLinksPlus) translate from Word’s template file format.
Even if you can’t open the file directly, you can try opening it as an RTF file. This
may allow you access to the text inside the file so you can copy and paste it into
another document. I stress, though, that you don’t load the file at all back into
Word. It’ll infect the Normal template again, and you’ll have to start over.
You may have some luck with the very latest virus checkers — Symantec, Network
Associates, or one of the others that specifically treats Word Macro viruses.
Unfortunately, they probably can’t wipe the virus from a p^irticular file; they can
just help you determine that the file is infected. You should also have luck opening
most of these infected files if you upgrade to Word 98 or higher.
This sort of virus is particularly insidious, because you’ll likely end up tossing the
infected documents, and you may have been working with infected documents for
quite a while. Luckily, the problem is limited to the documents themselves — no
directories, applications, device drivers, or anything else will have been infected.
These macro viruses offer a great reason to keep a good backup of your documents.
Chapter 31 4 - Clean and Maintain Your Mac OS 811
Summary
^ The best way to keep too many unexpected problems from cropping up is to
have a schedule and a plan for maintaining your Mac. This means both a daily
routine and a routine for doing various things at one week, one month, three
months, and other intervals. A Mac is like a car in this respect; aside from
some of them approaching car-like prices, they do need some regular
maintenance to behave well over a number of years of service.
-f Regular maintenance also means the occasional spring cleaning session and
regularly defragmenting your hard drive. Cleaning up your Mac’s system files
generally results in more disk space, fewer fragmentation problems, and fewer
file corruption problems. The same is true of defragmenting and optimizing
your hard drive, except that you also enjoy the added benefit of a speedier
computer after an optimization.
♦ Aside from regular maintenance, you should also work to protect your Mac
from virus infections. They’re not the most common problems you’ll
encounter, but they can cause serious trauma in your daily computing life.
Having the right tools on hand to combat viruses is essential.
4 The most likely virus infestation you’ll experience will not be with a typical
Mac OS virus; you’re much more likely to get a Word Basic virus, but only if
you use Microsoft Word 6.0. If you do, be aware that a number of viral strains
exist that will force you to stop what you’re doing and troubleshoot Word
when they hit. Many of the professional-level virus checkers can track these
viruses, so use them if you work with and share many Word documents.
Resolve System
Folder Conflicts
Y ou’ve truly graduated in the world of Mac
troubleshooting when you finally undergo an important,
time-consuming, and extremely annoying rite of passage —
troubleshooting extension conflicts. Even though the role and
usage of extensions has changed and grown dramatically over
the past ten years of Mac OS upgrades, the basics have
remained remarkably the same. Some extensions conflict with
others, causing problems at startup and during other times
you’re computing.
Other times, extension conflicts with specific applications
cause known or unknown issues that either the application
publisher or the extension author may or may not plan to do
anything about. In these cases it’s important to identify the
problem and move on with a solution or a workaround.
The extensions and control panels themselves can sometimes
be set in ways that upset programs and other extensions,
especially that troublemaking Memory control panel. In this
chapter, you’ll look specifically at the Memory control panel
to see what settings tend to play well with others.
Identify Extension Conflicts
Although I’ve been talking about extensions all throughout
this text, they probably deserve a reasonable straightforward
definition at this point. Extensions are small bits of code that
augment the Mac OS in some way, by either adding hooks for a
full-fledged application to work with or by adding some
capability to the Mac itself.
4 > 4 4
In This Chapter
How conflicts occur
Finding extension
conflicts
Using extension
conflict software
Resolving the conflict
Other System Folder
conflicts
4 4 4 4
814 Part IV > TVveak and Recover the Mac OS
Whaf s an extension?
Actually, the definition of an extension is a bit more elusive than that, so being
completely accurate depends on how technical you want to get. The easy answer is
extensions are small bits of code that load as the Mac is starting up and patch the
Mac OS in a way that extends the Mac’s capabilities. This is mostly true, although
that’s really only one type of extension, called an INIT, Other extensions, such as
RDEVs (Chooser devices) and shared libraries, don’t necessarily patch the Mac OS,
although they are part of the initialization process.
In fact, extensions don’t even need to be stored in the Extensions folder. If a
particular extension needs a user interface, it’ll most likely be stored in the Control
Panels folder, even if it has INIT qualities. This is an interesting point: all control
panels are not extensions, but those that need to talk to the user are generally
stored in the Control Panels folder.
The distinction isn’t terribly important, however. What is important is that your
Mac looks at both the Extensions and the Control Panels folders as it starts up in an
attempt to read and activate all the items with INIT resources stored in those
folders. It then tries to enable them all to do what they were created to do — extend
the Mac OS.
Most extensions do this by patching parts of the code that initially loads from the
Mac OS ROMs — the Read Only Memory chips situated on the logic board that help
the Startup Manager get the basic Mac OS up and running. In fact, the Mac OS on
your hard drive (in nearly all Mac models) is also designed to patch the code that’s
loaded from those ROMs so that the software routines (called traps in programming
lingo) are updated to the latest fixes and capabilities.
Most extensions also try to patch these traps, adding some interesting new
capability to the Mac OS in the process. 1 like to think of these as “But if...’’ patches.
The extension might patch a particular trap that’s designed to do a specific task,
but //the application asks that trap to do something slightly different, then the
extension code is there to help out. (Of course, that’s not always the case — some
extensions completely change the Mac OS behavior.)
The extensions then sit in RAM as part of the memory allocation known as the
system heap (which is the portion of memory called Mac OS in the About This
Computer dialog box). Whenever their services are required, they’re asked to
perform their duties using the RAM they’ve been allocated in the system heap.
They can also request additional RAM if they need to perform some quick function,
and then they release the additional RAM back to the Mac OS — ideally.
Extensions are loaded, in alphabetical order, as the Mac starts up (that’s when
you’ll see the icons on the startup screen). After all the INlTs in the Extensions
folder load, the Control Panels folder comes next, followed by anything else that’s
Chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 815
in the main System Folder that needs to be loaded as an extension. If you need to,
though, you can change the order in which these files load. Within their own
folders, you can use special characters and name changes to alter the loading
order. Or, you can place control panels in the Extensions folder, if necessary, to get
them to load early (assuming they have INIT resources). If you want the control
panel to maintain its place in the hierarchical Control Panels menu under the Apple
menu, you can add an alias in the Control Panels folder found in the System Folder.
How do you know when an extension is patching the Mac OS? As the Mac starts up,
the system extension icons (and some of the Control Panel icons, if they have exten-
sion-like aspects to them) scoot across the bottom of the screen as each loads. You'll
notice that some of them offer animated feedback or some other indication that
everything has proceeded normally and looks fine. In other cases, you may be hit
with an extension icon with a big X through it. This indicates that the extension hasn't
loaded for some reason — perhaps due to a conflict, although it might also not load
because there isn't enough RAM or the extension can't find the hardware or software
it's supposed to be working with.
What's a conflict?
The system extension’s attempt to extend the Mac OS doesn’t always work. When
this happens because another piece of software interferes (or if the extension fails
subsequently because it interacts poorly with another piece of software), it’s called
a conflict
In some cases, the extension may be conflicting with a part of the Mac OS,
especially if the Mac OS has been updated and the extension attempts to do
something that’s no longer allowed. It’s also possible the Mac OS offers a new
ability or a built-in fix that now conflicts with the extension or renders it
superfluous. These can be distressing conflicts, because it’s usually a sign that
the extension’s publisher needs to update the extension to deal with the Mac OS.
Apple will rarely accommodate an individual extension unless it breaks due to a
bug Apple introduces into the Mac OS. (And then that software publisher might
still be out of luck.)
In other cases, the extension might be in conflict with another extension that’s
already trying to patch the same trap. This can lead to the second extension being
disabled or unable to load, an immediate crash, or an instability that will manifest
itself later in that computing session. In fact, the process by which extensions patch
the OS offers one interesting solution in these cases: Sometimes you can just
change the order in which an extension loads and thereby solve the conflict. This is
actually an important distinction, because it has ramifications for troubleshooting;
not only may you need to find two or more extensions in conflict, but you may even
need to determine if changing the order in which they load can fix the problem.
A third sort of conflict arises when a particular extension can’t be used at the same
time as a particular application is being run (or vice-versa, depending on your point
of view). In these cases, you’ll either have to hope the software publishers work out
816 Part IV ^ 1\veak and Recover the Mac OS
a solution that enables the two to coexist, or you’ll end up pulling whichever one
you need to use less (or looking for an alternative).
Whaf s not a conflict?
You may find that your problem isn’t an extension conflict, but that you can’t get an
extension to work correctly or to load when it’s supposed to, even if it’s in the
Extensions Manager.
If you don’t appear to be enjoying the functions that a particular extension is
supposed to add to your Mac, you should look into the following before assuming
you have a conflict:
4 Have you restarted? You need to restart your Mac after making any changes in
the Extensions Manager so that the proper configuration can be loaded by the
Mac.
4 Did you disable extensions? I’ve done this before: I start up with the Shift key
to test one little item, and then I pretend to be all surprised when, 30 minutes
later, 1 try to print to my network printer. Make sure a full extensions set is
chosen in the Extensions Manager (preferably one of your own custom sets),
and restart the Mac.
4 Is the extension really there? It’s possible for you or Extensions Manager to get
a bit confused. Open the Extensions folder itself to make sure the extension is
really there and that it’s the only copy of the extension in that folder. If you
find duplicates, drag them to the Extensions (Disabled) folder or the Trash. If
you’re concerned that Extensions Manager seems to be misreporting
extensions, try throwing away the Extensions Manager preferences file.
4 Does the extension have a buddy? In some cases, more than one extension is
necessary to accomplish something, one extension needs to be loaded soon
after another extension, and/or they’re all designed to work together. Check
the extension’s documentation to see if it needs to be loaded with another.
4 Is the load order wrong? Try changing the load order for the extension by
altering its name slightly. (Extensions load in alphabetical order.) Add a space
in front of the name to move it toward the top of the load order; use a bullet
character (Option-8) to move it toward the bottom of the order. Experiment to
see if either help.
4 Is the file in the wrong folder? The Extensions Manager will report extensions
and control panels that are in the Extensions, Control Panels, and System files
and some other parts of the System Folder. Although most extensions and
control panels try to correctly place themselves in the proper directory,
something may have changed. Check to make sure you have each type of
system software item in its respective folder and, more importantly, that you
don’t have an important extension accidentaliy stashed away in the Eudora
folder, Claris folder, or one of the other unrelated folders that’s been created
inside the System Folder.
Chapter 32 4- Resolve System Folder Conflicts 817
If you check all these things and the extension still doesn’t load correctly or it
shows up with an X through it, there are three possibilities: The first is a conflict
with another extension that isn’t dramatic enough to cause a crash or error. Go
ahead and troubleshoot the extension. The second possibility is corruption in the
extension; try replacing it from your installation media or from a backup. Third —
the extension may not be intended for your Mac. Check your documentation, the
extension’s documentation or a shareware extensions helper such as InformlNlT
(see the “Conflict Resolution” section, later in this chapter) to see if you really need
the extension at all.
Diagnosis: Conflict
Conflicts aren’t always easy to diagnose, because they range from the very
straightforward — a crash during extension loading or an X-ed out extension icon —
to the very subtle. Some extension conflicts only occur when certain applications
are active or when another conflict is present. In fact, some extension conflicts can
occur based on when the troubled extensions are loaded; load A before B and you
get a crash, but load B before A and you have a happy, stable Mac. (Well, at least as
far as extensions go.)
Although these symptoms could also be attributed to other problems, in many
cases the following are good indicators that you may have an extension conflict on
your hands:
4 A system crash occurs while the Mac is starting up, after the Mac OS splash
screen has appeared and extensions icons have begun to flash across the
screen.
4- An X appears through one of the extension icons as the Mac is starting up.
4 Problems occur shortly after installing a new application or utility program
that included its own extensions.
4 Problems occur shortly after installing a new version of the Mac OS or when
using a newly installed application.
4 An extension doesn’t load (or an extension’s functionality doesn’t seem to
have been added to the Mac OS) even if no errors, crashes, or messages
appeared.
> The trouble disappears when the Mac is started up with extensions off or
when you use only Mac OS system extensions sets in the Extensions Manager.
♦ Consistent crashes or errors happen when the extension might logically be
put to use — for instance, when a network user tries to print (using the
Printer Share extension) to your Mac’s printer. This might also happen in
multiple applications when they try to perform similar commands (such as
Open, Save, or Print, if you have extensions that patch these commands).
4* Trouble occurs when an application that’s associated with a particular
extension is launched (for instance, when a personal calendar program
attempts to set off an appointment alarm that’s handled by an extension).
818 Part IV > TVveak and Recover the Mac OS
4- You seem to be having trouble that can’t be explained in another way. It’s
especially true that extension conflicts between extensions and applications
are a major cause of trouble on Macs.
Conflicts can sometimes have a certain feel to them. Because they work very much
like software bugs (and can sometimes be attributed to bugs) conflicts are usually
easily reproducible — the same crash or error happens over and over again. It’s
likely that the conflict will occur when you do the exact same thing in a problem
application, such as when choosing a particular command or following a series of
steps. When you think you’ve identified a possible pattern, do your best to verify
and document what you’re doing and consider what may be causing it.
Extension conflicts can often be identified by what's not working; that is, if a
problem is occurring with printing or network access, it’s likely to have something
to do with the networking or printing extensions you have on your Mac. (This is
especially true if you have add-ons that extend the Mac’s native abilities for
performing certain tasks or accessing peripherals.)
If you suspect an extension conflict, one way to tell if an extension conflict is
the likely culprit is to start the Mac with extensions off. You can do this a number
of ways:
4 Hold down the Shift key while the Mac starts up until you see the “Extensions
Off’’ message in the Welcome to Mac OS message box. If you don’t see this
message, make sure you’re holding down the Shift key just after the Mac’s
startup tone and before anything else happens.
4 In the Finder, open the Extensions Manager and turn off all extensions by
choosing the Ail Off set. Restart the Mac.
4 - As the Mac starts up, hold down the spacebar. This will cause the Extensions
Manager to appear as the first few extensions are loading. You can then
choose the All Off option and click the Continue button to continue the
startup process with extensions off. (Note: in some cases, this will not turn
off all extensions, because one or two may load before the Extensions
Manager appears. If you’re still getting crashes, try restarting and holding
down the Shift key.)
If you can start with extensions off, reproduce the circumstances that led to the
error, and the error doesn’t manifest itself, you’re a step closer to diagnosing a
conflict. (}{ the error does happen, it may be a bug in the particular application or
in the Mac OS.)
Your next step is to do the same thing with only the Mac OS Base and the Mac OS
All extension sets chosen in the Extensions Manager. From the Finder, choose the
Extensions Manager control panel. In that control panel, choose the extension set
Mac OS Base, as shown in Figure 32-1. Now, restart and check for the error. If the
error reappears, you might be experiencing a conflict with an extension that’s in the
Mac OS Base set. Move on to the Conflict Resolution section of this chapter.
Chapter 32 ♦ Resolve System Folder Conflicts 819
If the error is still gone, you should head to the Extensions Manager again and
choose the Mac OS All extension set. Restart the Mac and, once the Finder appears,
test again for the problem. If you encounter the error at this point, there’s a chance
the conflict is with one of the Apple extensions. If you still can’t re-create the
problem, there’s a good chance that you’ve stumbled upon a conflict with a third-
party extension.
Figure 32-1 : Use the Extensions Manager to load
only the extensions that ship with the Mac OS, and
then test for the error.
Another important way to determine whether or not you’re dealing with an
extension conflict is by doing a little reading. Specifically, read the Read Me file
associated with anything that you’ve recently installed or the file that came with
the application that is exhibiting trouble. It’s generally accepted that a Read Me file
that accompanies an application or utility (or Read Me First file. Release Notes, an
About file, or the program’s main documentation) will include information on
known conflicts, especially as they relate to the Mac OS and/or extensions.
Also, don’t forget the Apple-provided Read Me files, especially those that come with
your Mac OS system software upgrades, as well as any subsequent upgrades to
separate parts of the Mac OS installation (like updates to Open Transport or
QuickTime). Those Read Me files should point out known issues and conflicts with
both Apple-written software and many popular third-party products.
In Mac OS 7.6 and above installations, the Read Me files are even gathered together
in one place on your hard drive — in the Mac OS Read Me Files folder, located in the
root folder of your startup drive.
If the Read Me file isn’t much help, or one isn’t available for the application in
question, you should try contacting the customer service department or Web site
for the application (or utility or extension add-on) that is causing your trouble.
Another good place to check for conflict information is at the Apple Support Web
820 Part IV > Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
site (wvAV. a ppl e. com/ support). Common extension conflicts with popular
applications or utilities will often be discussed in the Mac media and on Mac-
related Web sites, too.
Note
IVe recommend both before, but Ted Landau's MacFixIt site (vavw . macf i xi t . com/)
is a wonderful resource for learning about conflicts and other OS issues. And, of
course. I'll track issues as they come up on the Mac-Upgrade site (www.mac-
upgrade . com/).
Evangelista tip: Visualize the new guys
Here's a very cool (and popular among the Mac digerati) tip for managing the System
Folder. One of the main problems you'll run into in conflict troubleshooting is you don't
always know when an application decides to plunk its extensions down in the System
Folder. Sometimes you notice while you're installing the program and sometimes . . . well,
sometimes you have other things to do.
So the trick is, how can you keep track of the old extensions so you can tell immediately
what new ones have been added? Use one of the most basic Finder features that no one
has ever really found a good use for- labels! This one was submitted by a few folks, includ-
ing Reed Jackson (Apple Computer), Wayne H. Deese, Martin Step (Kitchener, Ontario), and
Skillman Hunter (Acrobytes Software):
If you've just done a clean install, received a new Mac, or have a System Folder setup that is
working great right now, label your System Folder items. Open the System Folder and make
sure the view is set to As List in the menu bar. Option-click all the right-facing arrows (this
opens up all the subfolders), and then use the Find Select All command to select every
file in the System Folder and its subfolders. Now, use the FileO Label command to set the
label for every single System Folder item to the color of your choice. When a new extension,
control panel, file, or font is added, you'll know about it, because the new item won't have
a label.
This works great for individual folders -for example, Extensions, Control Panels, Fonts—
within the System Folder, too, if you'd prefer to track them separately.
Conflict Resolution
If you’ve turned off all extensions and the problem has gone away (or if it went
away with the Mac OS extensions on, but others off), you’ve probably diagnosed an
extension conflict. Congratulations. Now the real fun begins.
Chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 821
There are several ways to resolve a conflict resolution. The easiest way is to
identify the conflict as a known issue and follow the advice of the software
publisher: Disable the extension, stop using the application, or apply whatever
upgrades, fixes, or workarounds the publisher or some other troubleshooting
expert recommends. But this won’t always work, because you might not even be
sure which extensions and/or applications are in conflict.
So, you’re limited to the three more work-intensive approaches to conflict
resolution, all of which somehow require you to constantly restart your computer
and fiddle with your settings — sometimes for weeks straight without food or water
and with very little sleep — until you find the extension that’s creating the conflict.
Go ahead and choose whichever type of troubleshooting makes you feel good.
Quickly, the methods are as follows:
4- Identify the extension. There’s a good chance that this approach will end in
frustration, but you can attempt to find the problem extension according to
its function, and then disable it to see if it’s the cause. This is useful only when
you feel very sure that you know exactly what the conflict might be.
4- Conflict search. Using either the Extensions Manager or the Finder to conduct
your search, you logically pour through all the extensions, turning on one or
more at a time to test for the error or crash.
4- Conflict software. If you’re like me, you might just opt for this solution. It’s
much more fun to let a piece of software manage your conflict resolution for
you. The only problem: Some of these software programs have a steep
learning curve that can be considerably complicated.
Identify the extension
If you have a good idea what the conflicting extension does, this might be the
quickest way to conflict resolution. You don’t necessarily need to know the
extension’s name. Instead, you need to have a notion of what the extension patches
or what sort of routines It affects or adds in the Mac OS.
From this deduction, you can dig into the System Folder to figure out which
extension is responsible for the behavior you think is part of the problem. For
instance, you know it has something to do with your Open File dialog box, but
you’re simply not sure which extension could be causing that problem.
For this, you can begin by using the Extensions Manager. Here’s the drill:
1. Open the Extensions Manager from the Control Panels folder (or menu item
on the Apple menu).
2. If you have an option at the bottom of the window labeled Show Item
Information, click the arrow next to that option.
822 Part IV 4^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
3. Now select the extension or control panel about which you’d like to get
information. That extension’s information shows up in the small window at
the bottom of the Extensions Manager.
As you scroll through the extensions, you’ll find that some of them offer you some
idea of what the extension is for, and others don’t quite give you as much
description as you’d like (see Figure 32-2). In either case, you might find out what
you need to know about a particular extension.
Figure 32-2: The Extensions Manager can give you
extra information about extensions and control panels.
If your Mac is crashing while trying to load an extension, you’ll find that it’s tougher
to troubleshoot, because the Mac doesn’t get all the way to the Finder for you to
access the Extensions Manager. In this case, you should start up your Mac and
watch carefully to see which extensions get loaded (from their icons across the
bottom of the startup screen) and which extensions appear right as the Mac
crashes. Consider that the problem could really be one of the extensions very near
the last one you see on the screen; not every extension’s icon appears on the
startup screen, and it’s likely that the extension causing the crash isn’t getting an
opportunity to display its icon.
Now, start up with extensions off (hold down the Shift key while restarting) and
wait until the Finder appears. Open the Extensions Manager and find the last
extension that appeared on the startup screen. (You may need to open the actual
Extensions folder to see the full-sized icons of each extension to help you
determine which is the right one.) Once you find the extension, focus on testing the
Chapter 32 Resolve System Folder Conflicts 823
next few extensions that continue from the identified extension in alphabetically
order. Test those extensions according to the discussion in “Conduct a conflict
search” later in this chapter.
Once you’ve determined what the questionable extension does and you’ve decided
to assume it’s your culprit, open Extensions Manager and click to remove the check
mark next to that extension’s entry. Now restart the Mac and test for the error. If it
doesn’t show up after diligent testing, you might have correctly identified the
conflict. Now you just need to ask around (or surf to the publisher’s Web site) and
figure out why the conflict occurs.
Note
X
Remember that the problem may be the result of your problem extension conflicting
with another one of the extensions that's usually loaded prior to the problem exten-
sion. You might want to conduct a conflict search beginning with your Mac's first
extension and going through all the others that lead up to your problem extension.
While you're testing those extensions, you should also be loading the extension that
you've Identified as the problem. (That is, if I've identified extension F as a problem.
I'll load extensions A and F and test, and then I'll load A, B, and F and test, and so on
until I reproduce the error.) If you find that having another extension loaded makes
the problem appear, you may have completely isolated the conflict.
Shareware: Get more info
If the Extensions Manager doesn't give you enough information, you'll want to turn your
attention to a shareware solution. A number of them exist to help you figure out what the
various extensions do and how they may create a conflict.
Probably the most popular of these programs is Informlnit (http: //cafe. ambrosi-
asw.com/DEF/1nformINIT.htm1), a multipage document that lists an amazing number
of extensions from Apple and third-party software and hardware companies. InformlNIT
includes a wealth of information, including discussions concerning which extensions are
"officially" compatible with certain versions of the Mac OS. It also has fairly extensive trou-
bleshooting information, including incompatibilities, issues that deal with RAM allocation,
and suggestions for best use, sometimes from the authors of the extensions themselves.
Extension Overload (www.mi r. com.my/^cmteng) is a similar product designed to tell you
all about many of the extensions you might encounter in the Extensions folder. It's a little
easier on the eyes than InformlNIT, making it a bit easier to find a particular extension.
Some other shareware solutions for conflict catching (both recommended by InformlNIT's
Dan Frakes) include Macworld Installer Tracker (www5.zdnet.com/mac/download.
html), which tracks application installations, creating a log of every file that's been added
to your Mac and SysCompare, a program that takes a snapshot of your System Folder, and
then compares it with the current state of the folder whenever you need to see what's been
added.
824 Part IV 4- Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Conduct a conflict search
If you’re not sure what extension is causing the trouble, you can perform a conflict
search, the time-honored tradition of testing out each extension until the problem
extension loads and begins causing errors or crashes. Like any troubleshooting, the
point is to isolate the extension so you can pinpoint what’s causing the trouble and
then do something about it.
The process by which you isolate an extension, though, can work a couple of
different ways, include the one-at-a-time method, the few-at-a-time method, and the
binary-tree search method. Each has its advantages (at least, in certain situations),
although all three can be very time consuming. There’s a lot of restarting in conflict
searches.
Remember throughout these searches that you need to test for the conflict by
doing whatever you’ve identified is the problem — working with an application,
copying files, accessing the Internet, and so on. If you need a certain base of
extensions to make that task work, you should test those first for conflicts. Then,
load them every time as part of your base of extensions while you’re testing the
other extensions.
One-at-a-time method
With this method, the plan is to turn off all extensions (or turn off all non-Apple
extensions) and add each extension one at a time (in alphabetical order, in the
order of loading: extensions, control panels, System Folder files) in the Extensions
Manager. You then restart and test to see if the problem occurs. If it doesn’t, you
add another extension.
Most of the time I would avoid this method like the plague, at least for starters,
because it can be incredibly time consuming. But I supposed it might be useful for
troubleshooting situations where you feel that a limited number of extensions may
be causing the problem, or that the problem is caused by two or more extensions
conflicting with one another.
Few-at-a-time method
In this one, the plan is to turn off all extensions (or turn off all non-Apple
extensions), and then re-enable them a few extensions at a time — between three
and five, let’s say — in alphabetical order, in the order in which they’re loading:
extensions, control panels, and then System Folder files. Next, restart the Mac and
test for a conflict. If the conflict doesn’t happen, you can assume, for the moment,
that the problem isn’t in that particular group, so you add another set of extensions
to the mix. Restart again, test again.
Chapter 32 4 Resolve System Folder Conflicts 825
Once you’re able to reproduce the error or crash, you’ll need to go back cind
disable all the extensions you just added, and then re-enable them one at a time,
restarting and testing each. This will allow you to pinpoint the exact extension
that’s causing trouble.
This type of troubleshooting is a little less annoying, and probably the best
approach if you have a reasonable number of extensions. If you can find the
problem in three or four restarts, at least you haven’t yet lost the entire afternoon
to this process. (You still need to test and make sure that the conflict isn’t between
an earlier extension and this problem extension.)
Binary-tree search
This one has a cool-sounding name that harkens back to the programming concept
from which it derives its logic. Fortunately, the name is really the only thing that’s
complicated about this approach.
The basic point is to continue to divide all of your extensions in half until you
isolate the extension that’s giving you trouble. By the way, for this one, you might
find it useful to bypass the Extensions Manager and head straight for the System
Folder, even though Apple recommends you away from it these days. Open the
Extensions folder and the Extensions (Disabled) folder. Use these two folders for
splitting the extensions in halves.
Here’s the process:
1. Start by splitting ^dl extensions into two groups (alphabetically is best).
Enable the first group in the Extensions Manager or by dragging those files
into the Extensions folder — or, conversely, by dragging the second group out
of the Extensions folder.
2. Restart and test for a conflict. If you don’t find the conflict, enable the other
group of extensions, restart and test those. Now the conflict should show up
— if you still don’t find the conflict, you’ll need to try another method,
because you have a conflict between two or more extensions.
3. Split the group that has the conflict into two groups, enable one of those
groups, restart, and test for the conflict again. If you don’t find the conflict,
switch to the other group, restart, cind test. This other group should have the
conflict. If it does, split this group in two and repeat.
4. Continue the process until you’re down to the single extension that’s causing
the problem.
If at any point you test both halves and find out that the problem is no longer
occurring, this means that the conflict is between two extensions that have just
been separated into different groups. At this point, take these two groups and put
them back together again, and then use one of the first two methods to
troubleshoot the entire group.
826 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Confirmation
Even after you identify the extension that’s causing the problem, you may not be
done troubleshooting. The problem is you need to make sure the extension is
causing the problem all by itself — and it’s not in conflict with another extension.
Although the binary-tree search addresses this problem, the others don’t do quite
as good of a job; if the conflict is between two extensions, you probably saw the
results of the conflict after you enabled the second extension.
To test whether or not the extension causes a conflict on its own, isolate it. In the
Extensions Manager, turn off all extensions except that one, and then restart and
test it. (If you can’t test for the error or crash without other extensions, enable
those, too. Or, if you were already using the Mac OS base as your testing base,
enable the Mac OS base and the problem extension.) If it creates the problem, you
know the extension itself is causing the problem — or it’s conflicting with your
necessary base of extensions. In either case, you should probably try to upgrade it,
switch it for a similar extension, or dump it, if you can.
If that extension doesn’t cause the problem to appear, you’re back to the races.
Now you’ve got to integrate this extension into your base of extensions (even if it’s
the only one) and start to troubleshoot all the others again. (If you were enabling
your extensions in alphabetical order, you may only need to test against extensions
that came before the problem extension in order.) You’ve eliminated one, and
you’ve got at least one more to find following the same procedures.
Of course, you should cut yourself some slack. Once you’ve found one extension that
you know is part of the problem, head back to the sections "Diagnosis: Conflict" and
"Identify the extension" to see if you can reason out the problem with this extension
from an associated Read Me file or from the extension author’s Web site. If you can't
find any additional material on this extension, use InformlNIT or a similar product to
learn about it, see who wrote it, and research any potential conflicts.
Conflict management software
The Extensions Manager has been a welcome addition since its appearance in
System 7.5 and overhaul in Mac OS 7.6 and above, but it doesn’t do everything.
Specifically, it doesn’t do everything that Conflict Catcher, a commercial product
from Casady and Greene (www. casadyg . com) does. Conflict Catcher is designed to
root out problem extensions by literally taking over your Mac and performing the
troubleshooting itself. You still need to be there, but Conflict Catcher can run you
through the mundane parts. (Bring a good book.)
Before installing Conflict Catcher, read its Read Me file and associated startup
documentation carefully; it’s recommended that you turn off all extensions before
installing the product, and there are some incompatibilities you need to know
about, including some that occur with certain third-party keyboards (Conflict
Catcher makes use of the keyboard as you’re starting up your Mac, much like
Extensions Manager.)
Chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 827
Once you have it installed, the software looks something like the Extensions
Manager, but instead of checkmarking files to set them to load at startup, you
highlight them. Conflict Catcher will occasionally let you know when it feels
choosing a particular extension for loading is a bad idea. You can manage your
extensions much as you would with the Extensions Manager, and Conflict Catcher
includes a few additional features, such as the ability to drag and drop an extension
to change its load order.
The real fun starts when you put Conflict Catcher to the test in tracking down
an extension conflict. You tell the program you have a problem by clicking the
Conflict Test button in the Conflict Catcher window. Next, Conflict Catcher asks
you a number of questions about the conflict you’re having. Give the test a name,
choose the files you think may be causing the problem, and specify which
extensions shouldn’t be turned off (because they’re required to keep your
particular Mac running). Figure 32-3 shows Conflict Catcher’s test mode.
Conflict cmtier >1
Figure 32-3: The step-by-step process tells Conflict Catcher how
to proceed with the test.
With all that set, things go into motion. Conflict Catcher begins after you restart
the computer. Only a few extensions load, and then you’re asked to test for the
problem. If the problem occurs, you tell Conflict Catcher. If it doesn’t occur, you tell
Conflict Catcher that, too, and you continue the process of restarting. In essence.
Conflict Catcher is performing the conflict search I described earlier in this chapter.
828 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Conflict Catcher generally does a thorough job of looking for the conflict and will
often catch things you might not have. It helps to have some idea of what’s going
wrong, and you may have to play with things a bit to get Conflict Catcher on the
right track; for instance, you’ll need to figure out exactly which extensions need to
be loaded as part of your testing base so that the error can be testing for properly.
(If you think the error is with Printer Share, for instance, you’re going to have to
have all the AppleTalk and networking extensions and control panels active to test
Printer Share.)
If you want startup management software to work well for you, there are two
important things to remember when dealing with the software: First, install it
before you have a problem. Second, get to know it well, setting it up to manage your
different extension sets and allowing it to help you clean out your System Folder a
bit. If you get used to working with the program before disaster strikes, you’ll be
more ready to deal with it when the problems do set in.
Before using any startup manager other than the Mac's own Extensions Manager,
check the software publisher's Web site, the Mac news sites, and anywhere else you
can think of for news of conflicts between the management software and your ver-
sion of the Mac OS, especially if a new version has recently been released. I would
have talked about Now Startup Manager (www.qualcomm.com) as well as Conflict
Catcher, but as of this writing it still hasn't been updated for the latest OS releases.
Under those circumstances, it's important to avoid any startup manager, as they need
to be updated to understand changes in the Mac OS.
Solving the conflict
Having identified the conflicting extension or extensions, you’re ready to try to
solve the problem. As a first-aid solution, you’ll want to disable the extension or
even isolate it from the System Folder completed to avoid accidentally re-enabling
it and starting the process over again at some point in the future. But you’ve got
some other options for dealing with the conflict, too:
4 Gather information. Check the Read Me file, documentation, and Web sites for
all the software that’s in conflict (extensions, control panels, applications).
See if any of them acknowledge the problem or can point you in the right
direction. You might also check newsgroups or mailing lists to see if you can
find an answer to the issue. (See Appendix B for various online resources.)
Check for an update. Surf to the software publisher’s Web site and see if the
extension has been updated for some reason. This includes drivers, utilities,
and other extensions designed to work with hardware from a particular
company. Often those companies will update their drivers and utilities when
it becomes clear that the latest Mac OS is not working correctly with their
software. If they don’t have an update, register a bug report or complaint
and tell them as clearly as possible what the conflict is and how you are able
to reproduce it. If the conflict is with an application, check for an application
update as well.
chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 829
^ Check for corruption; replace with backup. You may want to run any software
that’s part of a conflict by your disk doctor program to see if it’s corrupted or
if other disk problems are affecting it. (Note that many shared libraries and
some extensions will be reported by older disk doctors as broken when
they’re not. Make sure you have the latest version of your disk doctor
software.) Even if you don’t find corruption, you can try replacing the
conflicting extension with another clean copy from your installation media or
from a backup. You should also try all the standard remedies — rebuild the
desktop, defragment the drive, and fix any errors on the drive with a disk
doctor program. If you’re working with a control panel or application that has
a preferences file, try trashing that file, too.
^ Change the load order. If you’ve identified a conflict between two different
extensions, you should try changing one of the extension’s names so that it
loads in a different order than previously. If extension A was loading before
extension B, change B’s name so that it now loads before extension A. You can
change the extension’s name just as you would any file’s: Click once on the
name of the file and wait a few seconds until the name becomes highlighted.
To load the extension toward the beginning of the process, add a space to the
beginning of the name; to load toward the end, add a bullet point (Option-8) to
the beginning of the name. This solution may work if your conflict is between
the extension and an application — just move the extension close to the
beginning or the end of the load order and see if that makes a difference.
> Increase memory allocation. If the extension is a few years old, it may be
conflicting with new memory requirement in the Mac OS. Few extensions
enable you to change their memory allocation easily, but you can check to see
if the extension in question can have its allocation changed. To test for that,
select the extension and choose FileO Get Info. If the Get Info dialog box
includes a Memory Requirements section, you can change the memory
allocation. (You may first need to disable the extension and restart.) Up the
extension’s memory requirements slightly — sometimes only 15- to 20KB will
work — to see if that helps the conflict. You can also consider raising a
conflicting application’s memory requirements slightly.
^ Replace the software. If you’ve identified the problem extension and can’t
come up with an update, you might want to fish around for a replacement that
can do remarkably the same thing, especially if the extension is a shareware
add-on (or, if a shareware equivalent is available). Check www . download . com
and WWW . macsof twa re . com for possible replacement candidates. If you can
replace an application that’s in conflict with this particular extension, and the
extension is more important, try working with the new application and see if
the problem can be avoided.
4 Manage the conflict. If you use Extensions Manager or a similar extensions
management utility, you might be able to create a new set of extensions
designed to avoid the conflict; for instance, an extension that conflicts with
Microsoft Word could be disabled in a set of extensions you call Use Word,
and then re-enabled in another set you call General Use. When you need to
830 Part IV > Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
switch back to General Use, you’ll select that set in the management software
and restart your Mac. It’ll be a little painful and time consuming, but it’ll work
around the problem (see Figure 32-4).
Figure 32-4: Use unique extension sets to work
around conflicts between an extension and an
application.
> Live without the software. If you can’t come up with a more equitable solution,
your best plan may be to drag the extension to the Trash and empty the
Trash. This at least keeps the extension from accidentally being activated
again and causing more trouble or data loss. And you may one day begin to
forget that loveable little extension. Time heals.
Even if one of the preceding solutions works, consider that the extension may be a
troublemaker in the future, too, especially since the same popular extensions tend
to show up on the conflict radar screen over and over again. Why? Because they
do something that Apple doesn’t support in every OS, or they patch the OS in a
very sophisticated way that’s also a delicate process — in fact, most of the time it’s
against Apple’s own guidelines. Although certainly worthy of your consideration,
Connectix’s RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler extensions are examples of extensions
that are notorious for breaking with every new Mac OS update, because they patch
the system at such a low level. Fortunately, most companies that make a living
writing these patches are quick to update for every Mac OS version when
necessary.
Chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 831
Other System Extension Issues
A couple of other factors in that System Folder — aside from extensions,
preferences, and the system files themselves — can cause a little trouble. These,
too, can create conflicts with extensions, control panels, applications, and utilities.
Specifically I’m talking about some standard Apple control panels that enable you
to set Mac OS parameters that may cause conflicts.
Control panels, software drivers for hardware peripherals, the networking control
panels, shared libraries and the Chooser can all cause their own sets of problems.
Fortunately, those are all covered in other sections of this book dedicated to the
specific area of trouble. What follows are software-only issues that haven’t been
addressed elsewhere.
Memory control panel
The memory settings can affect the Mac OS’s stability in a number of different
ways. Depending on the Mac model and Mac OS version you’re using, you may
have a few different options in that control panel that can affect system stability
(see Figure 32-5).
Figure 32-5: Settings in the Memory
control panel can affect stability and
performance.
If you’re having trouble that has some of the symptoms of a software conflict but
can’t be attributed to a particular extension or group extensions, the problem may
lie with the Memory control panel. Here are the settings you’re likely to encounter
and some possible problems:
4 Disk cache. Most modern applications deal well with healthy disk caches
settings, although older Macs and older versions of the Mac OS (especially
pre-System 7.5) generally didn’t use the cache settings for optimum speed.
These days, the cache should be set to about 32K for every MB of RAM your
832 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Mac has. Some applications (especially some programs in the graphics, 3D,
and multimedia categories) will specify that you turn the cache settings down
to its lowest level because the program itself has its own cache scheme. This
may also be true of third-party caching programs and extensions like
Connectix Speed Doubler, which acts as a substitute for built-in cache.
4* RAM disk. A RAM disk enables you to treat a portion of RAM as a hard disk,
saving data as you would any other media, only considerably faster. The RAM
disk can survive a restart, but will be wiped clean if the Mac is shut down or
the power is lost to the Mac. RAM disks don’t cause many conflicts aside from
increasing the size of the system heap memory allocation. The larger the RAM
disk, the less space you have for running applications.
4 Virtual memory. This one can cause conflicts, especially with some graphics,
animation, and multimedia applications that require only the use of fast RAM
for optimal performance. Because virtual memory uses hard drive space to
augment RAM, it’s useful for Mac OS systems that are a little crunched for
space in memory. It usually causes few problems, but buying more physical
memory is always a better solution than relying on virtual memory, especially
for high-end creative tasks. On older Macs, virtual memory goes hand-in-hand
with 32-bit addressing, another Memory control panel option that enables an
older Mac see more physical memory than it was originally designed to work
with. It can cause occasional trouble with very old applications and control
panels, but is mostly harmless. (There’s one special case worth noting: You
can’t select an HFS Plus formatted hard drive for virtual memory usage on a
pre-PowerPC Macintosh.)
When setting the virtual memory size and disk, a good number to choose is a few
megabytes over the actual, physical amount of RAM you have in your Mac. (If you
have 32MB of RAM, choose 33MB of virtual memory or so.) This makes for a good
speed compromise. Also, make sure you choose a drive that has enough free mem-
ory, plus quite a bit to spare. A conflict can arise if you put the squeeze on the drive
by filling it completely with application and data files when virtual memory — or any
other important part of the Mac OS system software — is trying to use it.
4 Modern memory manager. An option on early Power Macs running a pre-Mac
OS 7.6 version of the software, the modern memory manager doesn’t cause
too many conflicts, because it’s now always on. In the early days of the
PowerPC transition, though, some 68000-based programs ran better with the
memory manager turned off.
Energy Saver
This panel can cause a little trouble — usually mysterious sleep times and a
propensity to dim the monitor when you don’t feel like having it dimmed. If
you’re suffering from something of the sort, here are a few strategies to follow
regarding the control panel:
Chapter 32 -f Resolve System Folder Conflicts 833
> Know your settings. If you’ve never taken a look at the Energy Saver control
panel, familiarize yourself with it. It might explain behavior you weren’t
aware was being controlled — such as the monitor dimming or the hard
drive spinning down so that it takes a moment to unfreeze the cursor as it
starts up again.
-f If you make changes, make sure the panel is active. If you change the sleep
settings, and then immediately disable the control panel from the Extensions
Manager, you might still experience the older settings. Make sure to restart at
least once with the panel active and displaying the new settings.
"f Use the right Energy Sauer. There are two distinct versions of Energy Saver —
one for NuBus-based Macs and one for PCI-based Macs. The older version
often gets lost when you upgrade the Mac 8.0 or higher. If you can’t find
Energy Saver on your Mac (and your Mac is NuBus-based), try selectively
reinstalling it from your Mac’s original System CD.
"f Check twice. Some versions of the Energy Saver control panel won’t always
save the Scheduled Shutdown settings correctly, causing your Mac to shut
down at unexpected times (or not at all). If you set the shutdown time, switch
back to the Sleep Settings before closing the control panel. That will save the
settings. Check the panel again to make sure.
4* Preferences, not PRAM. If you feel the Energy Saver control panel is acting
wacky, and you suspect a settings corruption, there’s no direct need to zap
PRAM; try throwing away the Energy Saver preferences file first, because this
is where all Energy Saver settings are stored. Some other issue in PRAM could
be interfering, but it’s unlikely. Deleting the Energy Saver settings will cause
them to revert to defaults, so you’ll want to open the control panel after
deleting the preferences and restarting, and then set your Energy Saver
choices as usual.
> Avoid other sleep utilities. Make sure you’re not running other utilities —
including screen savers, screen dimmers, and third-party sleep software —
that might be interfering with Energy Saver.
> Turn of f Energy Saver when working with low-level utilities. As a precaution, it’s
a good idea to turn off the Energy Saver control panel (leave it active, but
disabled) when you plan to use Drive Setup, Norton Utilities, or any utility
that digs deep into your system. This keeps the Mac from trying to sleep or
spin down the drive while things are being worked on. In my experience, some
Macs simply crash more often when trying to wake from a sleep, and this can
be a real problem with low-level utilities.
834 Part IV Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Fonts
Although some font problems related to printing are covered in Chapter 26, it
should be noted that two basic software-only problems can cause fonts to conflict
with other utilities and applications, potentially creating errors or crashing the OS.
Test for these if you suspect a font may be causing the trouble or if your extensions
conflict search comes up empty:
4* Too many fonts. If your Font folder is overloaded, you may swamp
applications as they start up or cause them to grind to a halt. You may
also find that too many fonts will cause the application’s memory allocation
to be quickly filled, resulting in out of memory errors in the application itself.
To avoid this, limit the number of fonts in the Fonts folder at a given time by
managing them with font management software or dragging them out
manually to a Fonts (disabled) or similar folder.
♦ Corrupt fonts. A corrupt font can crash either an application as it’s loading,
crash the application while it’s in use or, sometimes, crash the Mac OS as
it’s starting up. If you suspect a particular font, try to isolate and test it by
choosing it in an application and using it for typing and printing. If the
program crashes, examine the font with a disk doctor program or replace it
with a fresh copy from your installation media or a backup.
As you might guess, the most obvious way to check for font corruption and a
subsequent conflict is to follow the same procedure as for extension conflicts —
disable them all, and then start adding them back in a few at a time and testing.
If you have a reproducible error when starting ClarisWorks, for instance, start by
quitting all programs but the Finder. Next, move all the fonts but Geneva and
Chicago from the Fonts folder to another folder, and then restart ClarisWorks and
test for conflicts. If those two fonts don’t cause a conflict, quit to the Finder, move
in five more fonts, and test again.
Eventually you may be able to find which font in particular is causing the problem.
If you do, isolate it further by only loading it into the application. Test it with other
applications as well. If you can, replace it with a fresh copy of the font and test that,
too. If not, see if a disk doctor program can identify the problem with the file.
Chapter 32 4 Resolve System Folder Conflicts 835
Summary
"f Extensions are small bits of Mac OS system software that extend the
operating system in some way, usually adding features that allow you to
do more with your Mac or allow the Mac to communicate directly with a
particular peripheral. These extensions are stored in the System Folder in
the Extensions and Control Panels folders. (Some control panels are also
extensions, because they load low-level code into the OS at startup time.)
■f A conflict occurs when two extensions unsuccessfully try to patch the same
part of the OS, extending functionality in either two different directions or in a
way that overlaps and causes errors. These conflicts can be tough to isolate,
because they either cause a random error message, crash early in the startup,
or just create a slightly less stable system for regular computing. Extension
conflicts should be considered when other types of hardware and software
troubleshooting fail.
4- To test for a conflict, you usually turn off most of your extensions, and then
following a predetermined algorithm, turn on one or more extensions at a
time, restart, and test again. This process can be time consuming, which is
why many users opt for extensions management software that's above and
beyond the capabilities of Extensions Manager. Some of this software can
actually do most of the troubleshooting for you, with a little guidance.
> Once you have the conflict in your sights, you can do something about it. If
the conflict isn't already known by the manufacturers, make it known and see
if you can coax a response out of them. Also, take the time to research the
conflict and see if there’s a viable solution. As an alternative, you can replace
the extensions or conflicting application with one known to cause fewer
headaches.
4 Finally, you'll find that extensions aren’t the only things in the System Folder
than can cause conflicts; aside from software drivers and control panels
discussed elsewhere in the text, a few choice software-only issues can crop
up and cause trouble.
4 ^ 4 ^
4 -
In Case of
Emergency:
Reinstall IVIac OS
I hear from too many readers and other computer users that
they plan — soon after finding a problem — to erase their
hard drive and start over again. To me, this is disturbing. I
want you to think of a reinstall as the last recourse, not the
first. That’s why it’s back here in the back, next to the pages
and pages of boring listings you’ll find in the appendixes. It’s
even got an ominous chapter number — 33 — which suggests
foreboding and wariness. I didn’t even pick 33 on purpose. It
was just the next number available.
If you’ve gotten to this point, you either have a problem with
your Mac that is so irrevocably perplexing that you’re ready to
give up, or, in a more rational moment, you’ve decided that
your Mac has been chugging along for a few years and might
be happy with a complete overhaul. There’s an adage for that
one (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it), but I can’t help but agree
that, under some circumstances, it’s okay to reinstall for
maintenance purposes.
In fact, one good reason to reinstall the Mac OS is because
you’ve decided to reformat your hard drive in the Mac OS
Extended format (called HFS Plus), which is discussed in
Chapter 27. This advanced file system, introduced in Mac OS
8.1, gives you access to a number of new features, not the
least of which is increased storage space. You should
approach HFS Plus with caution, but once the decision is
made, you’ll probably need to reinstall the Mac OS. (Some
utilities can implement HFS Plus without a reinstallation, as
discussed in Chapter 27, but if these utilities fail you’ll need
both a backup plan and a reinstallation of the Mac OS.)
In This Chapter
Should you reinstall?
Types of installations
Suggestions for a
clean install
> >
838 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Finally, if you plan to install a new version of the Mac OS, I’m certainly not going to
try to stop you. But you have an interesting decision to make in this regard, as well.
Should you perform a clean install? Instead of upgrading the files in your current
System Folder, a clean installation places the new version of the Mac OS in a new
System Folder. That leaves all your old extensions, control panels, and fonts in the
old System Folder, but it also means you can move them to the new one at your
leisure. If you’re lucky, this will do away with any nagging problems you have and
might increase stability. If you’re unlucky, a clean install can be a big pain in the
backside.
Displaying wanton disregard for people to whom Apple doesn't send free Power
Macintosh computers for evaluation, I refer constantly to the use of the Mac OS Install
CD-ROM in this chapter. If you don't have a CD-ROM drive and are planning to use
Mac OS installation floppies, this chapter will still, basically, apply to you. Just keep a
Disk Tools floppy on hand for starting up your Mac, if necessary, and realize that you
may not have as many options as I discuss. If you don't have a CD-ROM drive and
want to use Mac OS 8 or above, contact Apple. If your Mac is supported, they'll offer
you floppy disks at an additional cost. (It's conceivable that Mac OS 8.5 and above
won't offer a floppy option direct from Apple, because they'll be designed for
PowerPC processors only, and all Apple PowerPC machines have CD-ROM drives. If
your CD-ROM drive no longer works or you have some other need for floppy disks,
it's possible that Apple will make floppy disk images available on the Mac OS CD,
which you can then use to create floppy disks using Apple's Disk Copy program.)
should You Reinstall?
Reinstalling the Mac OS isn’t something you should take lightly. Although it may
seem like an easy fix for a tough problem — just pop in the CD and start installing —
the process is far more complicated than that.
For one thing, a reinstallation should never be seen as a first-aid solution to a
hardware or software problem. In almost all cases it’s important that you take the
time to troubleshoot your problem and isolate its cause, even if there’s not much
you can do about it. At least you’ll have a better idea of what may have caused the
problem you’re experiencing. (If you don’t have time at that moment because
you’re trying to get something important done, take the first aid approach and work
around the problem. When you do get a free moment, however, you should come
back to the problem and try to find its root cause.) With any luck, you’ll be able to
fix the problem without resorting to a new copy of the Mac OS.
And a reinstallation won’t necessarily guarantee success in solving the problem.
Although a clean install of the Mac OS may solve some problems (for example,
preference-file corruption or trouble with the Mac’s basic fonts), it won’t solve
larger issues (such as fragmentation, disk errors, or a bad hard disk driver).
Likewise, installing the Mac OS over itself to fix missing files or corruption generally
won’t work; the Mac OS installer won’t overwrite newer files and can’t do much of
Chapter 33 -f In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 839
anything about third-party extensions that may be causing problems for your Mac.
In addition, it won’t overwrite or replace files already in the System Folder, no
matter how corrupted those existing files might be.
The Mac OS isn’t really as fragile as you might be led to believe, even with the
possibility of bugs, conflicts, and corruption. After many years of use. I d say that
the Mac OS rarely needs to be reinstalled and only for the most drastic of reasons.
If you think you might be able to avoid a reinstall, you probably can. Unless you
have a problem that sincerely requires you to reformat your hard drive or replace it
with a new one, you can probably troubleshoot your current Mac OS system and
repair it so that it’s stable again. Most of the time.
Don't reinstall
Before you consider reinstallation, then, take a look at some of the main issues that
reinstallation doesn’t address. In these cases, it’s important to troubleshoot first
and see if you can come to some conclusion as to why the error is occurring.
Reinstallation won’t cure or solve the following:
’f Trouble with your file system or hard drive. If you need to rebuild the desktop,
run Disk First Aid, mount drives, install hard-disk drivers, defragment, disk fix,
or recover deleted files, a reinstallation won’t help (except insofar as newer
Mac OS Installers do a cursory check of the drive to see if it has remarkable
file-system damage. This is not a substitute for disk fixing).
4 Virus infection. Viruses don’t just attack the system files, they infect individual
files on your Mac outside the System Folder files (in most cases). Some
viruses can also infect the desktop database, low-level portions of your hard
disk, or hidden files on the drive. In all of these cases, a reinstallation would
simply give the virus more fresh files to infect.
> SCSI trouble and most hardware issues. The only thing a reinstallation could do
to help with hardware trouble would be to include the installation of an Apple-
written extension or control panel designed to interact with hardware.
Otherwise, SCSI voodoo, network cabling, printing, scanners, and input
devices all need to be examined directly when problems occur.
4- System Folder conflicts. Reinstallation will rarely help you recover from a
System Folder conflict, because these sort of conflicts don’t often arise
between two or more Apple-written extensions (which are the only extensions
reinstalled when the Mac OS is installed). Instead, conflicts usually crop up
between third-party extensions and the Mac OS or between extensions and
applications, neither of which is addressed when you reinstall.
^ Bugs or file corruption. If your Mac OS files have bugs, that’s not going to
change when you reinstall unless you’re installing an upgrade to the Mac OS.
840 Part IV 4 Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
And bugs in other programs won’t be affected by a reinstall. Unless you
perform a clean installation, a reinstall won’t alter the effects of file
corruption, because the installation process won’t overwrite corrupt files that
are already in the System Folder or elsewhere on the hard drive.
So, if you have one of these sorts of problems, you have your work cut out for you.
Jump back into the troubleshooting chapters (Chapters 21 through 32) and see
what you can find out about your particular problems. Reinstallation has its place,
but the first step is to thoroughly explore the troubleshooting and repair options at
your disposal. If you get through them all and still can’t figure out what’s wrong,
then it’s time to contemplate a reinstall.
Do reinstall
In a few cases reinstallation (or a clean installation) of the Mac OS makes sense.
Sometimes you can reinstall just a part of the Mac OS distribution and get good
results, too. Most of the time, though, it won’t really be a good idea to reinstall until
you’ve exhausted most of your other options. Then, in cases where you’ve
diagnosed a problem but can’t fix it by moving files around, you may need to
reinstall the OS or portions of it.
In other cases, you may decide the drastic steps required to reinstall are worth
some goal beyond simple troubleshooting; it gives you a chance to start over, an
opportunity to work with a fresh system, or it may help avoid problems caused by
upgrading over and over again. Here are some possible reasons to go ahead and
perform a reinstallation or clean installation of the Mac OS:
4 Beyond repair. If your System Folder is shot — many files are missing, shared
libraries have been misplaced, extensions and control panels are everywhere
— you should probably consider a clean installation so you can start over
again with your Mac. This is especially true if, regardless of what you do, you
can’t seem to get the startup disk to boot the Mac.
4 Clean start. If the Mac is causing so many headaches that it’s worth it for
you to start over with a new System Folder — or if you’ve even considered
erasing the entire drive or just chucking the system out the window — maybe
a reinstall is warranted. If you are considering such drastic steps, consider
how you’re going to back up all your data, too.
♦ Formatting and partitioning. If you’ve decided to format and/or partition your
hard drive, you’ll likely need to reinstall the Mac OS after that’s been
accomplished. This can be a really good idea if you plan to upgrade to
HFS Plus, too, because you get not only a better file system, but also a fresh
start with a clean installation and a chance to control what gets installed on
the Mac.
Chapter 33 > In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 34- 1
4 Need a file. If you’ve deleted a file or a series of files that were written by
Apple and necessary for the System Folder, you’ll probably need to reinstall
those from the Mac OS CD. In some cases you may be able to perform a
custom installation and add the files you need. In other cases, the best plan
may be to perform a clean installation, and then drag files from that new
installation into the old System Folder.
System or Finder corrupt. In these cases, you may have no choice but to
reinstall the Mac OS if you can’t get the machine booted because of
corruption in the most important files on your Mac. In such cases, it’s best to
have a backup of these files, but not many people do.
These are valid reasons for wanting to reinstall the Mac OS. Of vital concern here,
though, is that you must reinstall correctly to bring about the desired effect. There
are different ways to go about that and, if your problems are severe, such
reinstallations can be time consuming.
Reinstalling Mac OS
If you’ve decided that a reinstallation of the Mac OS is a good plan for your current
needs, you’re ready to move forward. You’ll want to take care that a number of
precautions are in place, because a reinstallation is a major undertaking that, while
not likely to cause damage, could create trouble with your Mac as you get it up and
running.
Pre-flight check
Although a reinstallation can take a few hours to completely accomplish, depending
on how you perform it, it could take a few weeks for you to shake out all the issues
associated with the change over. Fortunately, most Mac applications are resilient to
this sort of change, as long as you take the appropriate precautions before forging
ahead.
Do these things before reinstalling:
4 Backup. You should have a nearly complete backup of your hard drive before
proceeding with a clean installation or reinstallation. Although you won’t
always need the backup, it’s a good idea to have a saved record of your
current System Folder and all its components. Although they may be causing
some trouble with bugs or corruption, at least you’ll have the option of
examining the old System Folder’s structure to compare it to the new System
Folder to troubleshoot problems.
842 Part IV 4 Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
> Gather all drivers. You’ll need drivers and installers for all your peripherals
and many of your software add-ons. If you perform a clean install, the best
way to complete the task is to reinstall everything — the Mac OS, your printer
drivers, scanner extensions, Claris and Microsoft applications, utilities, and
anything else that might need to add something to the System Folder. It’s
possible to simply drag those files over to the new System Folder, but that
might defeat the purpose, because you could be dragging corrupt or bug-
riddled files.
4 Fix the disk. Before performing a reinstallation, do everything you can to
rebuild the desktop, fix the disk, and optimize it. Understandably, some
problems necessitating a reinstallation will make It difficult to perform these
tasks, but you’ll be much more likely to enjoy long-term stability if you do
manage to complete some basic disk maintenance.
4 Have startup alternatives. Be prepared for the possibility that your hard drive
won’t be able to work as the startup disk at some point in the reinstallation
process. Also, be wary of booting from your most recent Mac OS installation
CD; you’ll sometimes find that small incompatibilities in the “universal System
Folder’’ used to make these CDs bootable will affect your ability to get the Mac
started. As a backup, have on hand two items — a bootable disk (“Disk Tools”
should work) and the original Mac OS CD that came with your system, if you
had one. This is especially true for clone Mac models. If you have a non-Apple
CD-ROM that didn’t come with your Mac, you should attempt to make a boot
floppy that Includes in its System Folder the driver for your CD-ROM drive.
Apple recommends that, before performing any sort of installation, you open the
Extensions Manager and choose the Mac OS All set of extensions. This keeps your
third-party add-on extensions from interfering with the installation process, which
is unlikely, but conceivable. Obviously, if your clone or upgraded Mac requires
certain extensions to operate beyond the Mac OS All, you should enable those, too.
You should also pay careful attention to your Energy Saver settings, preferably
turning off Energy Saver for the duration of the installation. (You should leave the
control panel active in the Extensions Manager, but set the control panel to Never
for sleeping and dimming the screen, and restart the Mac before installing.)
Although some recommend it, you probably don’t need to boot from the
installation CD-ROM to install or update the OS. Instead, just make sure you have
the CDs and/or startup disks mentioned previously.
If you feel like being thorough, you should also restart and zap PRAM before
committing to a long installation. It isn’t necessary, but might help in rare
circumstances.
With these things at the ready, it’s time to forge ahead. Your next step will be to
decide what type of installation you need to perform.
Chapter 33 > In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 843
Although it's not official advice, don't forget to find any files you may need immedi-
ately- important files for work, your checkbook data, your tax papers in case of a sur-
prise audit -and back them up to a removable cartridge or disk of some sort where
you can get at them while you're undergoing this process. You may need to borrow
another Mac or run down to the copy store to get something done while yours is in
the throes of installation or to deal with any problems that crop up as a result.
Types of installation
Before you perform the installation, you should stop to consider exactly what
you’re trying to accomplish and what sort of installation will be best for that goal.
You can take three different approaches.
A complete installation will install the Mac OS on a drive that hasn’t had the Mac OS
on it previously. If you choose to perform a complete installation on a drive that
does already have a Mac installation present, the installer will either update the
current OS or it will add files that are missing from the current version that’s
installed on the hard drive.
A custom installation will enable you to choose specific installers that will launch
and install their wares on your drive. In fact, you can also selectively install files
from each of the individual installers. For instance, you can decide to launch just
the Text-to-Speech installer, or even install just some of the components (such as
the Speech Manager extension) that are a part of Text-to-Speech. Custom
installations are a good idea if you know that you’ve never added a particular
technology to your Macintosh or if you know that certain drivers and extensions
are giving you trouble, and you’d like to remove the originals from the System
Folder and install fresh copies. This wouldn’t help in the case of a virus, but might
help with a problem such as file corruption.
A clean installation generally means you’re installing a new System Folder and all its
(Apple-based) contents onto a drive that already has a valid System Folder. You can
do this for any number of reasons, but most of the time it’s done for
troubleshooting purposes. The Mac OS installer program (in Mac OS 7.6 or higher)
offers an option that enables you to choose a clean install, making it a simple
matter to add a second System Folder to your drive instead of overwriting the
existing System Folder.
To do this, the installer disables the existing System Folder, renames it Previous
System Folder, but leaves it on your Mac’s hard drive. This allows you to access it
once the new system is installed so that you can drag over extensions, fonts, and
other elements that you want to hold onto.
844 Part IV ^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
After renaming the old System Folder, the Installer then creates a new System
Folder and installs a fresh version of the Mac OS. This becomes your main, startup
System Folder, excluding any of the custom, third-party software, extra extensions,
software drivers, and fonts that were in your original System Folder, as well as
starting over with new preferences files and settings in your control panels. This
is usually a basic Mac OS installation, but it could be customized to include
extensions and system files from more or fewer of the **extra” installers offered
when you choose a full installation, as discussed in the next section. As far as all
the third-party stuff goes, you’ll need to install it on your own.
Regular installation
The Mac OS installer program went through a fairly significant change in Mac OS
7.6, and has since transformed even further. The installation program itself does a
couple of significant things. First, it walks you through the installation process
more carefully than had Mac OS installers in the past. Second, it has really become
a basic launcher or starting point for a series of other installers that make up the
entire Mac OS installer CD-ROM. (Compare this to Mac OS 7.1, which originally
came on seven disks!)
If you plan to do a full installation and don’t need the benefit of a clean install, you
can simply load the Mac OS installer and begin the process. This is ideal if you’re
Installing on a new drive, installing on a newly formatted and partitioned drive, or if
you’re installing over your old Mac OS because you or a disk-fix program has been
forced to throw out corrupted system files. (If you know what those files are, you
might want to custom install them — check the section, “Custom installation,” later
in this chapter.)
When you run the Mac OS installer, one of the first things it does is check the hard
drive to make sure you have enough hard drive space for a standard installation. If
you don’t, you’ll be asked to choose another disk or delete files from the current
disk before moving on. If you plan to do a new installation or a clean installation,
you’ll need to adhere to this warning. If you’re planning a custom installation or
you’re reinstalling the Mac OS over itself, you can skip the warning and click
Continue (see Figure 33-1).
Next, you’ll be introduced to and asked to agree with the licensing agreement —
click the Continue and Agree or OK buttons if you agree with everything you read. If
not, don’t install the OS.
Chapter 33 4- In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 845
Figure 33-1 : The Mac OS installer lets you know if it
thinks youTe running a bit low on disk space.
The installer then shows you the basic installation screen, where you can choose
from among the extra installers you want to launch during this session. (These
installers have been identified as extra, because they don’t appeal to every sort of
user. On the other hand, Open Transport and networking files are installed with all
full Mac OS installations because they’re considered standard.) You click to put an
“X” in the check box next to each of the installers that you’d like to launch during
this installation session.
At this point, you can also choose to customize the installation. In essence, this
gives you access to options that enable you to turn off the installer for the Mac OS,
the Mac OS InfoCenter, Internet Access, and Open Transport. (There may be newer
installers in future versions that can also be controlled by selecting the Customize
option.) Using this customizing control, you can select only the Mac OS for
installation, for instance, or select a few installers that install extra features,
without bothering to install the basics.
You can also choose the Options button at this point to determine whether or not
you want the Mac OS installer to attempt to Install a new Apple hard disk driver. If
you have reason to believe that you shouldn’t — or if you have a Mac clone or
you’re installing onto a non-Apple disk — click to remove the “X” next to this option.
Once you’ve chosen all the installers you want launched, click Start. The Installer
will then take a few moments to check your hard drive for errors (this is basically
the same procedure that Disk First Aid goes through). If all goes well, the first
installation program in your series will pop up and begin installing things. The Mac
will work through the rest of its installers until it’s installed everything (or
encounters an error). At the end, you click Continue to install more things or
Restart to begin your Mac using the new system software.
846 Part IV > Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
If you get an error message from the installer telling you that it can't update the ver-
sion of the Mac OS that's on your hard drive, it's probably because the installed ver-
sion is later than the version on the installation CD, for example, you're trying to
install Mac OS 7.5.5 over Mac OS 8.0. If that's the case, and you really want to install
the older version, you should probably perform a clean install, described later in this
chapter.
Custom installation
To customize your installation, you can do one of two things. The first thing is to
head to the main Mac OS installation program and run it as discussed in the
previous section, choosing the Customize button in the main installation window.
You can then choose whether or not you'll install the basic Mac OS along with the
Internet connectivity features and PPP software for Open Transport. Click Start and
the hard-drive checking and installation process begins.
Once the secondary installers open, however, you’ll have another chance at
customization. In each of these, you'll have the opportunity to choose from three
different installation options:
4- Easy install. Installs all of the Apple-recommended files, usually so that yon
have full capabilities.
"f Custom install. Allows you to use the installer to add only certain related
components. This is good if you’d like to reinstall drivers or extensions that
you’ve accidentally deleted or thcit have become corrupted (see Figure 33-2).
Custom remove. Helps you remove components controlled by this installer
that have already been installed on your Mac. To uninstall a particular
component, click to place an “X" next to that item.
Figure 33-2: Choosing Custom Install gives you
access to all the components controlled by this
installer.
Chapter 33 -f in Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 84-7
Using the Custom Install option, you’re given the opportunity to choose exactly
which components controlled by that installer you’d like to add to your hard drive.
Click the check box next to each item that you’d like installed. Note also that you
can get information about what each item does by clicking the small information
C‘i”) icon that floats way to the right next to each item.
Once you’ve chosen all the items you need, click the Install button. The installer
will copy the appropriate components to your System Folder, and then move on to
the next installer. If it’s reached the last of the installers you asked to use, you’ll be
asked to Continue (to access any installers you didn’t choose the first time around)
or Restart the Mac.
Clean install
The idea with a clean install is to either update your Mac to a new version or
reinstall the Mac OS on your hard drive, but without disturbing a copy of the
System Folder that’s already been installed on the drive. With a regular installation,
you’ll install Mac OS files right into the existing System Folder, which might result in
the same problems you’re trying to avoid if you’ve got corruption or conflicts in
your current System Folder.
Bypass the test: Quicker custom installation
If you know the exact component (and its associated installer) that you need to add to your
Mac to get everything working, you might prefer to bypass the hard drive check. If s nice
that Apple has built this into the installer in Mac OS 7.6 and higher, because very few peo-
ple are diligent enough to check their drive before installing. But if you're planning a simple,
quick installation, waiting to test the entire drive can be frustrating. (This may also be nec-
essary If you have a Mac thafs been upgraded with a newer processor, a processor daugh-
tercard, or a similar upgrade. Sometimes the installer will choke when it finds a processor
it's not familiar with. If so, try to bypass the main installer and go directly to the specific
installer you want to use.)
The answer is to dig around on your Mac OS Installation CD and find the specific installer
you're looking for. This bypasses the main Mac OS installer program, enabling you to
quickly add just the components in which you're interested.
In the CD's main root-level folder in the Finder, use the scrollbars to scroll down below the
visible icons. You should see a folder that says Install Pieces, Installer Programs, or some-
thing similar. Open that folder and you'll be presented with icons for all the various
installers available. These are the individual installers that the main Mac OS installer calls
once it's done checking your drive. Launch one of these installers and you'll bypass the
drive test, heading straight for the installation itself. (Note that the actual Mac OS installer is
available in here, too, just in case you really feel like cheating.) This may not be true in Mac
OS versions beyond Mac OS 8.1, although I hope it is.
848 Part IV 4^ Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Instead, a clean install disables the old System Folder and installs a brand new one.
This gives you a chance to start over again with a completely new installation.
Assuming your hard drive and other hardware items aren’t giving you any trouble,
you may be able to quickly avoid problems that are currently plaguing you. Maybe.
(See the pros and cons of reinstalling the Mac OS earlier in this chapter for a full
discussion.)
So why not just format the drive and do a full installation? Because you only need
to format the drive if you’re partitioning to create more virtual drives, formatting to
get past an extreme fragmentation problem, or if you’ve reformatted in HFS Plus
format. Otherwise, formatting the drive is overkill.
Keeping the old System Folder has three additional advantages. First, it allows you
to see exactly how the old System Folder was arranged. This can be helpful when
something doesn’t work with the new System Folder installation and you wonder
why. (For instance, you can easily answer questions such as the following: What
extensions were necessary for using my CC)-Recordable drive? Just head for your
old System Folder and examine its contents to see what’s missing.)
Second, having the old System Folder gives you something to go back to, if
necessary. This is especially true if you’re not having trouble with the old system,
but you decide to perform a clean install as a precaution, in case an updated
version of the Mac OS is buggy or doesn’t work well with your Mac. If either of
these is the case, you can disable the new System Folder, re-enable the old one, and
restart the Mac.
Third, keeping the old System Folder will allow you to move components — such
as third-party extensions and drivers — directly to the new System Folder, without
requiring you to reinstall all that software. Again, this isn’t the best idea if you were
having a conflict or other trouble; in that case, reinstall everything from the original
media just to make sure you’re solving the problem. But if you’re just updating to
the new OS, you’ll find it’s easier to drag your third-party extensions to the new
System Folder than it is to scare up all those old installation disks and CDs.
The easy way to effect a clean install is to allow the Mac OS installer to do it for
you. In Mac OS 7.6 or above, simply check the Perform Clean Installation option
that appears in the regular Mac OS Installer window (see Figure 33-3). Next,
proceed as usual with the installation.
Chapter 33 ^ In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 849
Figure 33-3: The easy way to perform a clean installation
If you don’t have a Perform Clean Installation option in your installer, you’re using
an older Mac OS version. That’s OK, though — just hold down §€-Shift-K while the
installer window is open. This should pop up an option that enables you to choose
how the installation will be performed — by updating an existing System Folder or
installing a new System Folder (see Figure 33-4).
Figure 33-4: In earlier OS versions you can perform
a clean install if you know the secret keystrokes.
If the keystrokes result in an error message telling you that you can’t perform a
clean install, it’s possible that you’ve attempted to perform a clean install from a
System CD that’s only designed to upgrade an existing System Folder. These CDs
are often distributed free; Apple designs them so that they can’t create a new
installation on their own. Instead, you’ll need to create a clean install of the earlier
OS, and then use this upgrade CD to update that new, clean version.
850 Part IV -f Tweak and Recover the Mac OS
Unbless and clean install
If you'd like to perform without the aid of the Clean Install option in newer OS installers or
the §8-Shift-K sequence in older installers, you can do so fairly simply. You just need to unb-
less the old System Folder before launching the installer. This can be a little dangerous; if
you're forced to abort the installation or otherwise reboot your Mac, it won't be able to start
from the hard drive. Be sure you have bootable CDs and Disk Tools disks ready.
To unbless the System Folder, open it up and move the System file to the Extensions
(Disabled) folder. (You can choose another folder, such as the Fonts folder, or you can
move the System file to another folder outside of the System Folder, if you like.) Now close
the System Folder.
Rename the System Folder to something like Previous System Folder. Launch the installa-
tion program.
If it's unable to find a blessed System Folder, the installer should happily "Easy" or "Custom"
install the Mac OS onto the drive in a new folder called System Folder. This will be a clean
install of the OS.
Installation errors
You generally won’t get errors when installing the Mac OS, especially if you’ve
followed the precautions of checking the drive with a disk fix utility and optimizing
it — an important step — before performing a huge installation session. If you
haven’t though, you may be flirting with errors. Of course, the errors could come
about for other reasons, too. Here’s a quick look at potential errors and their
solutions.
4“ Unable to quit all applications. The installer may have trouble quitting
applications that are running in the background when you begin the process.
In most cases, the installer quits every application, including the Finder, to
avoid potential conflicts while the installation is taking place. To get around
this you should restart the Mac with only Mac OS extensions running and
nothing active in the Startup Items folder (you can manage that through the
Extensions Manager). Next, immediately run the installer after the restart has
completed (don’t run other applications first).
4 Disk errors. If the installer stops, quits, or complains due to a disk write error
(or a disk full error), you need to quit the installation and check the drive to
make sure it has enough disk space for the installation. If that’s not the
problem, restart and run a disk fix utility. You should also consider booting
from a CD-ROM, and then running the utility to get the full effect of the
fixes. Defragment the drive as well, and then try the installation again. If
you continue to get errors, you may need to back up your data and files,
and then test the drive for physical errors (using Drive Setup or your drive
management software) cind reformat (see Chapter 27 for details on
formatting).
chapter 33 ^ In Case of Emergency: Reinstall Mac OS 851
> Read errors. If the installer has trouble reading something from its own media,
there could be a problem with the available RAM for the installer (restart and
run only the installer with only the Mac OS All Full extensions running.)
Although it’s unlikely the problem, you can also give the installer more RAM in
its Get Info window. (You may need to copy the installer and its installation
files to your hard drive to get this setting to take.) More likely, there’s
something physically wrong with your installation media. If you can isolate
the particular installer that’s causing the problem (such as the OpenDoc or
QuickDraw 3D installer), try eliminating those in a custom installer, and then
install again. If necessary, you can install those components from another Mac
OS CD or by downloading their latest installers from Apple’s file library.
^ Conflicts, crashes. Again, if the installer program crashes, you should try
restarting with only the Mac OS extensions enabled and without any
other applications running. If crashes persist, you may have a corrupt
Mac OS-related extension; troubleshoot the extension conflict and/or try
restarting and installing with fewer or no extensions enabled, followed by
a clean install to create a new System Folder.
Summary
> Reinstalling the Mac OS should be an option of last resort, not first. If you
plan to reinstall the Mac OS because you’re having trouble with your system
software, you should first try all the troubleshooting advice in earlier
chapters. Often, reinstalling the Mac OS won’t solve corruption or conflict
issues, especially if you install it over an existing version.
> You should reinstall the OS if you’ve formatted the drive, are upgrading to
a newer version of the OS, or have exhausted all other troubleshooting
possibilities. In this case, you have three different installation options: an
easy install, a custom install, or a clean install.
4- Easy and custom installs enable you to install the Mac OS on a drive that
doesn’t currently have a valid System Folder. If the System Folder does exist,
its contents will be updated and overwritten by the installer.
-f A clean install will enable you to create a new System Folder on a hard drive
that already has a System Folder. For troubleshooting and as a precaution,
this has many advantages. You can continue to consult the older System
Folder, you can revert to it if necessary, and you can slowly move extensions
and drivers from the earlier System Folder to the new one without being
forced to reinstall all your utilities and drivers.
Vendor Listings
T his appendix lists the Macintosh peripheral vendors
discussed in this book, along with their contact
information. A Web site is often the best way to get
information, which is why Web sites are included throughout
the text of the book when referring to a company. If you’re
interested in getting in touch with a particular company
through more traditional means, though, here’s the contact
information you’ll need.
Apple Computer, Inc.
Apple Computer, Inc. (www.apple.com)
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014-2084
408-996-1010
Type of Support
Number to Call
Standard —support for the first
90 days you own an Apple product
800-500-7078
Application — support for software, such
as QuickTime
512-873-4300
Apple Support Line — paid support calls
after 90 days
888-APL-VALU
Professional - support for helpdesk
professionals
888-APL-VALU
Automated -general information and
frequently asked questions
800-SOS-APPL
854 Appendixes
Online Shopping
APS Technologies (v;ww . apstech . com)
800-395-5871, 816-483-1600
6131 Deramus Street
Kansas City, MO 64120
sales@apstech.com
Club Mac (WWW. cl ub- mac. com)
Customer Service 800-258-2622
Fax 949-768-9354
Monday — Friday 6 a.m. — 6 p.m. PST
7 Hammond Street
Irvine, CA 92618
custsvc@cl ub- mac. com
Cyberian Outpost (www . cybout . com)
800-856-9800, 860-927-2050
Fax 860-927-8375
P.O. Box 636
Kent, CN 06757
sal es@outpost
MacConnection (www.macconnecti on . com)
Customer Service Department: 800-800-0018
PC Connection
528 Route 13
Milford, NH 03055
Other World Computing (www.macsales.com)
800-275-4576
Monday — Friday 8:30 a.m. — 8 p.m.; Saturday 10 a.m. — 5 p.m.
224 West Judd Street
Woodstock, IL 60098
compsales@aol .com
Adapters, Ports, Input cards
Belkin Components (www . bel ki n . com)
800-2-BELKIN
Fax 310-898-1111
P.O. Box 5649
Compton, CA 90224-5649
Appendix A 4 Vendor Listings 855
Griffin Technology (v;ww . nashvi lie. net/~gri f f i n/)
615-255-0990
Fax 615-255-8040
820 Fesslers Pkwy, Suite 315
Nashville, TN 37210
gri ff i n@tel al i nk . net
Infowave (www . i nf owa ve . com)
800-663-6222, 604-473-3600
Fax 604-473-3699
Infowave Wireless Messaging Inc.
Attention: Customer Service Group
4664 Lougheed Highway, Suite 188
Burnaby, British Columbia
Canada V5C 6B7
Interex, Inc. (wwv/. i nterex.com)
800-513-9744
8447 E. 35th Street North
Wichita, Kansas 67226
Kernel Productions (www .kernel . com)
302-456-3026
Tech support fax 302-456-3124
Monday — Friday 7 a.m. — 7 p.m. EST
Keyspan (www.keyspan.com)
510-222-0131
Fax 510-222-0323
3095 Richmond Parkway, #207
Richmond, CA USA 94806
info@keyspan.com
Momentum, Inc. (www.momentuminc.net)
425-893-8100
Fax 425-893-8200
sal es@momentumi nc . net
support@momentumi nc . net
Proline Distribution (www. prol i ne . com)
A division of Casa Blanca Works, Inc.
415-461-2227
Fax 415-461-2249
148 Bon Air Center
Greenbrae, CA 94904
i nfo@prol i ne . com
856 Appendixes
TechCessories (v^ww . techcessori es . com)
80(M80-TECH (8324)
Fax 408-954-1984
2031 0-Toole Avenue
San Jose, CA 95131
USR Systems (www . 3Com.com)
(US Robotics and 3Com have merged)
800-NET-3Com, 800-638-3266, 408-764-5000
Fax 408-764-5001
3Com Corporation
5400 Bayfront Plaza
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8145
utilities. Drive Maintenance, and Backup
Systems
Aladdin Systems, Inc. (www. al addi nsys . com)
408-761-6200
Fax 408-761-6206
165 Westridge Drive
Watsonville, CA 95076
servi ce@al addi nsys.com
Alsoft Inc. (www.Al soft.com/)
800-ALSOFT1, 800-257-6381, 281-353-4090
Fax 281-353-9868
Monday — Friday 8:30 a.m. — 5:30 p.m. CT
P.O. Box 927
Spring, TX 77383-0927
Tech . Support@Al soft . com
Dantz (www.dantz.com)
925-253-3000
Fax 925-253-9099
4 Orinda Way, Building C
Orinda, CA 94563
customer_servi ce@ntz . com
Appendix A -f Vendor Listings 857
MicroMat Computer Systems, Inc. (wwv/.mi cromat . com)
800-829-6227, 707-837-8012, 707-838-4231 (automated)
Fax 707-837-0209
Monday — Friday 9 a.m. — 5 p.m. PST
8868 Lakewood Drive
Windsor, CA 95492
i nfo@mi cromat . com
Symantec Corporation (www . Symantec . com)
800-441-7234, 541-334-6054
Fax 541-984-8020
1 75 West Broadway
Eugene, OR 97401
Software Applications
Adobe Systems Incorporated (www .adobe . com)
800-833-6687, 408-536-6000
Fax 408-537-6000
345 Park Avenue
San Jose, California 95110-2704
FileMaker, Inc. (www. f i 1 emaker . com)
800-544-8554, 800-800-8954 (automated)
Monday — Friday 6 a.m. — 6 p.m. PST
P.O. Box 58168
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8168
Microsoft Corporation(www . mi crosof t . com)
800-426-9400
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond. WA 98052
info@microsoft.com
clone Vendors
APS Technologies (www . apstech . com)
816-483-1600
6131 Deramus Street
Kansas City, MO 64120
858 Appendixes
Mactell Corporation (www.mactel 1 .com)
888-MACTELL, 512-323-6000
Fax 512-323-6394
7000 Cameron Road
Austin, Texas 78752-2828
info@mactel 1 .com
Motorola, Inc. (www . mot . com)
847-576-5000
1303 East Algonquin Road
Schaumburg, IL 60196 USA
Radius, Inc. (www. radius . com)
650-404-6000, 800-5-RADIUS
460 East Middlefield Road
Mountain View, CA 94043
support@radi us . com
UMAX Technologies, Inc. (www . Umax . com)
800-562-0311, 510-651-4000
Fax 510-651-8834
BBS 510-651-2550
3561 Gateway Boulevard
Fremont, CA USA 94538
Processor Upgrades
Mactell Corporation(www.mactel 1 .com)
888-MACTELL, 512-323-6000
Fax 512-323-6394
7000 Cameron Road
Austin, Texas 78752-2828
i nfo@macte1 1 . com
MicroMac Technology (www. mi cromac . com)
714-362-1000
Fax 714-362-5428
27121 Aliso Creek Road, Suite 125
Aliso Viejo, CA 92656-3364
sa1es@micromac.com
Newer Technology, Inc. (www.newertech.com)
800-678-DRAM (3726). 316-943-0222
Fax 316-943-4515
4848 W. Irving Street
Wichita, KS 67209 U.S.A.
i nfo@newertech.com
Appendix A -f Vendor Listings 859
PowerLogix (www. powerl ogi x . com)
512-795-2978
Fax 512-795-2981
8760A Research Boulevard, Suite 240
Austin, TX 78758
info@powerlogix.com
Sonnet Technologies (www. sonnettech . com)
800-7864)260, 714-261-2800
Fax 714-261-2461
18004 Sky Park Circle, MS 260
Irvine, CA 92614
sal es@sonnettech . com
XLR8 (www.xl r8.com)
800-513-9744
8447 E. 35th Street N.
Wichita, KS 67226-1344
Logic Boards
MilagroMac (www. mi 1 agromac . com/ upgrades . html)
714-723-1056
Fax 714-673-7238
RO. Box 5240
Newport Beach, CA 92662
mi 1 agro@pacbel 1 .net
NEXCOMP (www . nexcomp . com)
888-GET-A-MAC, 281-469-4061
Monday — Friday 9 a.m. — 6 p.m. CT
Nexus Communications
11115 Mills Road, Suite 112
Cypress, TX 77429
sales@nexcomp.com
We Love Macs (www . 1 ovemacs . com)
408-725-8046
Fax 408-744-0307
8 a.m. — 8 p.m. PST
P.O. Box 700063
San Jose, CA 95170-0063
1 ovemacs@net-shoppi ng . com
860 Appendixes
Storage Devices/SCSI
Adaptec, Inc. (www . adaptec . com)
408-945-86()0
Fax 408-262-2533
691 South Milpitas Boulevard
Milpitas, CA 95035
sal esbtc@corp . adaptec . com
Drivesavers (www . dri vesavers . com)
800-440-1904, 415-382-2000
Fax 415-883-0780
400 Bel Marin Keys Boulevard
Novato, CA 94949
customerservi ce@dr1 vesavers . com
Hitachi (www.hi tachi .co.jp)
800-241-6558
Fax 770-279-5699
RO. Box 4650
Norcross, GA 30091
webmaster@hi tachi .co.jp
IBM North America (www . i bin . com)
800-IBM-4YOU, 770-863-1234
Fax 770-863-3030
1 133 Westchester Avenue
White Plains, NY 10604
Initio Corporation (www .initio, com)
800-99-INITIO, 408-577-1919
Fax 408-577-0640
BBS 408-577-0431
Monday — Friday 8 a.m. — 5 p.m. PST
2188-B Del Franco Street
San Jose, CA 95131-1575
sales@1nitio.com
Panasonic (www . pa n a son i c . com)
201-348-7000, 800-PANASYS (automated)
1 Panasonic Way
Secaucus, NJ 07094
pcpchel pdesk@panasonic.com
Toshiba America, Inc.
(212) 596-0600
1251 Sixth Avenue, Suite 4100
New York, NY 10020
Appendix A 4- Vendor Listings 861
CD, DVD, Removable Drives
Casa Blanca Works (www. prol i ne . com/cbvn' ndex . html)
415461-2227
Fax 415461-2249
148 Bon Air Center
Greenbrae, CA 94904
1 nfo@prol i ne . com
Castlewood Systems, Inc. (www.castlewoodsystems.com)
510-224-9900
Fax 510-224-9901
5000 Hopyard Road, Suite 330
Pleasanton, CA 94588
castl ewood0castl ewood systems . com
e4 (www. e4 . com)
408441-6060
Fax 408441-6070
1731 Technology Drive, Suite 800
San Jose, C A 95110
i nfo@e4 . com
FWB Software LLC (www . f wb . com)
6504824800
Fax 6504824858
2750 El Camino Real
Redwood City, CA 94061-3911
1 nfo@fwb . com
Imation (www. 1mation.com)
888466-3456, 612-7044 000
Fax 800-5374675
1 Imation Place
Oakdale, MN 55128-3414
1nfo@1mation.com
Iomega (www . i omega . com)
800-my-stuff, 801-778^1000
1821 West Iomega Way
Roy, UT 84067
NEC (www. nec . com)
800-338-9549, 800-366-0476 (automated)
Fax 630-775-7900
BBS 978-6354706
1250 Arlington Heights Boulevard
Itasco, IL 60143
862 Appendixes
Philips (WWW. phi lips.com)
800-326-6586, 423-521-4316
Fax 423-521-4586
P.O. Box 14810
1 Philips Drive
Knoxville, TN 37914
Pinnacle Micro (www . pi nnacl emi cro . com)
800-553-7070, 714-789-3000
Fax 714-789-3150
140 Technology Drive, Suite 500
Irvine, CA 92618
fasteddi e@codenet . net
Pioneer (www. pi oneer . com)
800-421-1404
Fax 310-952-2247
P.O.Box 1763
Long Beach, CA 90801
product . pse@pi oneerservi ce . com
Plextor (www.plextor.com)
800-886-3935, 408-980-1838
Fax 408-986-1010
BBS 408-986-1569/1474
4255 Burton Drive
Santa Clara, CA 95054
info@plextor.com
Ricoh (WWW. ricohcorp.com)
webmaster@ri cohcorp.com
Sanyo (www. Sanyo . com)
818-998-7322
Fax 818-7014170
21350 Lassen Street
Chatsworth, CA 9131 1
Software Architects (www. softarch . com)
425-487-0122
Fax 425-487-0467
19102 North Creek Parkway, #101
Bothell, Washington 98011
sales@softarch.com
Appendix A -f Vendor Listings 863
Syquest Technology, Inc. (wv/w. syquest.com)
510-226-4000
Fax 510-226-4100
BBS 510-656-0473
47071 Bayside Parkway
Fremont, CA 94538
sal es@syquest . com
Teac (WWW. teac . com)
213-726-0303
Fax 213-727-7656
7733 Telegraph Road
Montebello, CA 90640
webmaster@teac.com
Yamaha Corporation of America (www.yamaha . com)
714-522-9011
6600 Orangethorpe Avenue
Buena Park, CA 90620
infostation@yamaha .com
Input Devices
Adesso, Inc. (www.adessoinc.com)
310-216-7777
Fax 310-216-7898
100 Corporate Pointe, Suite 230
Culver City, CA 90230
i nfo@adessoi nc . com
APS Technologies (www . apstech . com)
800- 395-5871, 816-483-1600
6131 Deramus Street
Kansas City, MO 64120
sal es@apstech . com
CalComp Technology, Inc. (www . cal comp . com)
714-821-2000
Fax 714-821-2832
2411 West La Palma Avenue
Anaheim, CA 92801-2689
Cirque (www.gl idepoint.com)
801- 467-1100
Fax 801-467-0208
433 West Lawndale Drive
Salt Lake City, UT 84115-2916
info@cirque.com
864 Appendixes
Gefen Systems (v/ww . gef en . com)
800-545-6900
Fax 818-884-3108
6261 Variel Avenue, Suite C
Woodland Hills, CA 91367
gsinfo@gefen.com
Kensington (www .kensington. com)
800-280-8318
Fax 650-572-9675
Attn: Customer Service or Sales
2855 Campus Drive
San Mateo, CA 94403
i nf o@kensi ngton . com
MacAlley (www . ma ca 1 1 y . com)
626-338-8787
Fax 626-338-3585
Mace Group, Inc.
5101 Commerce Drive
Baldwin Park, CA 91706
info@macal1y.com
Microspeed (www. mi crospeed.com)
510-259-1270
Fax 510-259-1291
2495 Industrial Parkway West
Hayward, CA 94545-5007
i nf o@mi crospeed . com
Qtronix (wv/w .qtronix.com)
408-467-1888
Fax 408-467-1880
1746 Junction Avenue, Suite E.
San Jose, CA95112
Wacom Technology Corporation (www . wa com . com)
360-896-9833, 800-922-9348 (U.S. only)
Fax 360-896-9724
BBS 360-896-9714
1311 SE Cardinal Court
Vancouver, WA 98683
sales@wacom.com
Special Needs Input Devices
Alva Access Group (www .aagi.com)
510-923-6280
Fax 510-923-6270
Appendix A 4 Vendor Listings 8G5
tty 510-923-6286
5801 Christie Avenue, Suite 475
Emeryville, CA 94608
i nfo@aagi . com
Dragon System’s PowerSecretary (www. dragonsys . com)
617-965-5200
Fax 617-527-0372
320 Nevada Street
Newton, MA 02160 USA
i nfo@dragonsys . com
Duxbury Systems, Inc. (wv/v/. duxbury systems . com)
978-486-9766
Fax 978-486-9712
435 King Street
P.O. Box 1504
Littleton, MA 01460 USA
1 nfo@duxsys . com
RJ. Cooper and Associates (www . rjcooper . com)
800-RJCooper, 714-661-6904
Fax 714-240-9785
24843 Del Prado #283
Dana Point, CA 92629
rj@rjcooper.com
Synapse Adaptive (w ww . s y n a p s e a d a p t i v e . c om)
888-285-9988, 415-455-9700
Fax 415-455-9801
3095 Kernel* Boulevard, Suite S
San Rafael, CA 94901
i nfo@synapseadapti ve.com
Touch Screens
ELO TouchSystems, Inc. (www. el otouch . com)
800-557-1458, 510-608-3200
Fax 510-608-3277
6500 Kaiser Drive
Fremont, CA 94555
el oi nfo@el otouch . com
Information Display Systems (www . i di spl ay . com)
302-764-8602
i ds@i di spl ay . com
866 Appendixes
KeyTec, Inc. (www.magictouch.com)
800-MAGIC-89, 972-234-8617
Fax 972-234-8542
sa1es@magictouch.com
MouseTouch Technologies, Inc. (www.mousetouch.com)
806-274-7296
Fax 806-274-7298
505 West 10th Street
Borger, TX 79007
sal es@mousetouch . com
PixelTouch (www.pixeltouch.com)
909-923-6124
KDS Pixel Touch
1840 Carlos Street, Building 15 A
Ontario, CA 91761
Touch Screens Inc. (www. touchwi ndow.com)
800-753-2441, 770-921-8436
Fax 770-921-8494
5761 Four Winds Drive
Lilburn, GA 30247
i nfo@touchwi ndow.com
Troll Touch (www. trol 1 touch . com)
805-257-1160
Fax 805-257-1161
25510 Stanford Avenue, Suite 106
Valencia, CA 91355-1 131
trol 1 touch@earthl ink.net
Scanners
Agfa Division (www . agf a . com)
201-440-2500
Fax 20M40-5733
100 Challenger Road
Ridgefield Park, NJ 07660
Appendix A > Vendor Listings 867
Caere (www.caere.com)
800-535-7226, 408-395-7000
BBS 408-395-1631
100 Cooper Court
Los Gatos, CA 95032
ocr_sa1es@caere.com
Epson (WWW. epson . com)
800442-2007, 310-782-0770
20770 Madrona Avenue
Torrance, CA 90503
Hewlett-Packard (www . hp . com)
650-857-1501
Fax 650-857-5518
3000 Hanover Street
Palo Alto, CA 94304-1185
La Cie Ltd. (www.lacie.com)
503^444500
Fax 503-8444508
22985 NW Evergreen Parkway
Hillsboro, OR 97124
sales@cie.com
Linocolor (www. 1 i nocol or . com)
888-LINOCOLOR
Fax 516-233-2166
8320 Old Corthaus Road, Suite 200
Vienna, VA 22182
i nf o@l inocolor.com
MicroTek (www.microtek.com)
310-297-5000, 310-297-5101 (automated)
Fax 310-297-5050
Monday — Friday 7 a.m. — 5 p.m. PST
Polaroid Corporation (www . pol a roi d . com)
800432-5355, 781-386-2000
549 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02130
UMAX Technologies, Inc. (www . Umax . com)
510-6514000, 800-286-6186 (automated)
Fax 510-651-8834
BBS 510-651-2550
3561 Gateway Boulevard
Fremont, CA 94538
868 Appendixes
Visioneer (www. vi sioneer . com)
510-608-6300, 888-368-9633 (automated)
Fax 716-871-2138
34800 Campus Drive
Fremont, CA 94555
Digital Cameras
Eastman Kodak Co. (www. kodak . com)
800-235-6325
Monday — Friday 9 a.m. — 8 p.m. EDT
343 State Street
Rochester. NY 14650-0229
Olympus (www.olympus.com)
516-844-5000
Fax 516-844-5930
Two Corporate Center Drive
Melville, NY 11747-3157
Nikon, Inc. (www.n1kon.com)
800-52-N1KON, 516-547-4200
Fax 516-547-0299
1300 Walt Whitman Road
Melville, NY 11747-3064
Casio Computer Co., LTD. (www.casio.com)
800-962-2746
1-6-2 Honmachi
Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 151-8543, Japan
qvsupport@casi o-usa . com
Online
Resources
X
> 4 ^ 4 >
T he Internet has quickly become the information source of
first resort when it comes to the Macintosh world. If
you’re looking for information on troubleshooting, upgrading,
particular peripheral issues, or daily news bites to keep you
informed on Mac goings-on, fire up your Web browser and
check out these sites. (Actually, a few are FTP sites where you
can download files directly; you can use a Web browser for
these, too, or an FTP program such as Fetch for Macintosh.)
Apple Web Sites
These are all sites handled under the corporate banner of
Apple Computer, and they feature news, information, support,
and developer information. Apple’s site is reasonably
complete, and you’ll often find what you want, although not
always by simply surfing. When in doubt, use the Search
textbox to see if you can find what you’re looking for.
www.apple.com/
This is the index page for the entire Apple USA Web site,
including links to the latest news items, product information,
and support.
www.appIe.com/hotnews/
This page gives you the latest on Apple technologies,
products, and tradeshow appearances, as well as the
occasional feature story on people who work at or with Apple.
It’s a good place to find product, technology, and service
announcements, as well as good news about Apple.
li ■'
870 Appendixes
www.apple.com/supporl/
This is the index page for Apple’s support site, including links to the Technical
Information Library, the Software Update Center and links to others support
resources such as the troubleshooting guide and the Apple Specifications database.
http://til.info.apple.com/
You can get to this site from the Support pages, but it’s certainly a good idea to
have the URL memorized, especially if Mac upgrade or repair is your livelihood,
hobby, or specialty. Thousands of technical articles discuss problems and issues
that have been brought up by Apple engineers, technicians, and telephone support
staffers. (See section later in this appendix.)
www.apple.com/developer/
These pages, intended for Mac OS programmers and developers, also offer good
information on how Apple’s technology works and what the latest additions are
through news items and press releases.
http://product.info.apple.com/productinfo/datasheets/index.html
The AppleFacts Online Archive on Apple’s main Web site is a great resource for
learning about past Mac models, including an in-depth look at capabilities and
specifications.
www.apple.com/store/
This is Apple’s online store for configuration and purchasing Apple products.
1 International Apple Site Index Pages
Area
URL
Asia Pacific
WWW. as i a . appl e. com/
Australia
www.apple.com.au/
Belgium
www.apple.be/
Brazil
www.apple.com.br/
Canada
www.apple.ca/
Chile
www.applechile.cl /
Czech Republic
www.apple.cz/
Denmark
www.apple.dk/
Europe
www.euro.apple.com/
Appendix B -f Online Resources 871
Area
URL
Finland
www.apple.fi/
France
www.apple.fr/
Germany
www.app1e.de/
Holland
www.apple.nl/
Hong Kong
http://app1ec1ub.com.hk/
Hungary
www.apple.hu/
Iceland
WWW. apple. Is/
Japan
www.apple.co.jp/
Latin America/
Caribbean
WWW. 1 at inamerica .apple.com/
Mexico
www.apple.com.mx/
New Zealand
www.apple.co.nz/
Norway
www.apple.co.no/
Poland
www.apple.com.pl /
South Africa
www.apple.co.za/
Spain
www.apple.es/
Sweden
www.apple.se/
Switzerland
www.apple.ch/
Taiwan
www.apple.com.tw/
Turkey
www.bil kom.com.tr/
United Kingdom
WWW. uk.euro. appl e.com/
Shopping
Various sites on the Web can help you shop for a new Mac, a used Mac, or an
upgrade peripheral that you’d like to install in your existing Mac. These sites are by
no means the only ways to shop online (nor am I necessarily endorsing any of them
if they are commercial sites), but they might help get you started on your quest for
cool new Mac stuff.
872 Appendixes
www.amcoex.com /
Here you’ll find American Computer Exchange’s regular listings of used buying and
selling prices on the Web.
www.club-mac.com/
Club Mac really does feel like a club, of sorts, especially when you sign up for their
weekly e-mail sales sheet. Plus, they often have great prices, discounts, and close-
outs.
www.outpost.com/
Cyberian Outpost is a complete resource for software, books, accessories, Macs
and peripherals. Another good place to shop, Cyberian Outpost is known for its
“Coming Soon” lists which feature manufacturers’ announcements for not-yet-
released products.
www.macsaies.com/
This site has been improving its look and feel for quite a while now, but you often
can’t beat Other World for great prices on Macs, PowerBooks, and other
equipment. It’s a no-frills kind of Web site, but that’s part of what makes it fun.
www.mac-deals.com/
This Web site keeps track of all sort of deals on Macs, upgrades, and peripherals on
other sites around the world. Includes searches, special reports (such as MacWorld
Expo price lists and where to find the best deals on particular upgrades), and even
some news and quality reports.
www.smalldog.com/
Small Dog Electronics is another favorite Mac, upgrade, and peripheral vendor.
www.enprolndia.com/macguide/
The Mac OS Buyer’s guide is a Web site devoted to comparisons of retail prices on
Mac OS computer systems and peripherals.
http://mac.computertown.com/
Here are the Mac-specific pages of ComputerTown, a popular store and information
resource for Mac users, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area. They’re an
authorized electronic reseller, though, which means they can sell Apple products
directly over the Web.
Appendix B ^ Online Resources 873
Used Parts and Classified Sales Sites
Site Name
URL
Shreve Systems
WWW. sh re vesys terns . com/
NEXCOMP
WWW. nexcomp . com/
MilagroMac
WWW. mi 1 agromac.com/
We Love Macs!
www.lovemacs.com/
insanely Great Classifieds
WWW. i nsanely-great . com/ cl ass . html
ClassMac
www.classmac.com/
Mac Trading Post
www.mymac2u.com/themactradi ngpost/
Classic Macs
www.unitus.ml . org/cmsal es/
PowerDeals (PowerBook
classifieds)
WWW. powerdeal s . com/
Usenet — Macs for Sale
comp. for sal e . computers .mac
Usenet - Mac Systems
For Sale
comp. sys .mac. forsal e
Usenet — Mac Systems
Wanted
comp. sys. mac. wanted
Interested in visiting the Usenet classifieds boards? You may need a special program
to access Usenet. Cyberdog, Outlook Express, Netscape Communicator (in the
Messenger module), and Microsoft Mail and News can all access Usenet newsgroups.
Newswatcher from John Norstad is a great shareware choice for this task.
Mac News
Mac news Web sites are incredibly popular and successful, with many different
players trying their hand at Web-based Mac journalism. Some of them puli it off
better than others (including those participants who actually are professional
journalists). But if you’re interested in Mac news, you won’t want for opportunities
to read some.
874 Appendixes
www.mac8urfer.com/
Features Mac-related headline news from the popular Mac-oriented Web sites and
other news organizations around the Web.
www.maccentral.com/
One of the premiere Mac news sites, with features and stories that change daily,
including popular columnists, consumer advocacy, and rumor-squashing reports.
www.macosrumors.com/
The much-heralded (and sometimes maligned) rumor source covering possibilities
and probabilities in the world of Macs and Apple Computer.
www.macnn.com/
Mac-related headline news, updated many times a day. Hosts the MacNN Reviews
and MacNN Reality, another rumor report.
www.webintosh.com/
Daily headlines, columns, and product reviews, includes a stock-watch report, news
on other sites, and product previews.
www.macaddict.com/
Online arm of the popular Mac magazine offers regular news, commentaries, and
special reports on its Web site.
www.macweek.com/
Once the Mac world’s weekly professional tabloid journal, MacWeek is now only on
the Web, although its news is keeping pace with the rest. Articles featuring
professional insider stories and leader’s opinions change at least weekly, and often
more frequently.
www.macreport.com/
The new weekly magazine for Mac users and professionals includes some online
news, but most of it comes in the form of a free weekly PDF or text document. It
may, at some point, become a weekly print newspaper.
www.tidbits.com/
Adam Engst’s venerable e-mail-based Mac newsletter has a large audience base of
happy readers. The list is distributed weekly and includes news, commentary, and
product reviews and roundups.
Appendix B 4- Online Resources 875
www.gcsf.com/
Home of MWJ, the weekly journal of Macintosh news and analysis. To get your
weekly dose of MWJ’s analysis requires a monthly subscription, although you’ll find
information about the newsletter and occasional free versions on the site.
www.ogrady.com/
O’Grady’s PowerPage is a news, analysis, and reviews site dedicated to all things
PowerBook. Features info on specific PowerBook models, rumors regarding
upcoming models, and links to sites for more information about PowerBooks.
www.mactimes.com/soho/
SOHO Macintosh News and Tips features just what it says: news and tips for the
small office/home office Mac users.
Mac Advocacy
These sites focus on analyzing the news, rallying the troops, or responding to more
mainstream articles, columns, or criticisms of all things Mac. They may not be the
most reliable sites when it comes to product information or updated or unbiased
looks at Apple Computer, but they’re sure to prove enjoyable and, occasionally,
more right than not.
www.evaiigelist.macaddict.com/
The official Web site of the Evangelist, a mailing list started by Guy Kawasaki to
spread good news among Mac users. The list also has a useful side; if you need to
formulate an argument, find a particular product, or encourage a company to write
a Mac version of their software, post your request to the Evangelist and you’ll likely
be inundated with replies, strategems, and encouragement.
www.mackido.com/
Opinions on many things Mac-related and some things not. Mackido’s specialty is
focusing on the major media’s view of Apple and what they get wrong in their
arguments,
www.macmarines.com/
The Mac Marines fight against injustice, misinformation, and general evilness in the
computing world — at least, as they define it. The truth is, they don’t seem to
update too often, although they do have a great links page.
876 Appendixes
www.apple.com/whymac/
The Why Mac pages on Apple’s site include feel-good information such as Apple’s
advertising and benchmarks, along with reports, facts, and opinions that may help
you convince others to buy more Macs (or allow you to keep the Mac you have).
Upgrade and Troubleshoot
Here’s the meat — some of the best sites to find information about your Mac model,
new Mac upgrades, hardware problems, software issues, and the latest conflicts,
bugs, and other errors.
www.mac-upgrade.com/
The companion site for this book, repository for updates, news, information and
reviews of upgrades and hardware troubleshooting for Macs.
www.macfixit.com/
An excellent resource for regular updates, news, and information on maintaining
your Mac and troubleshooting software and Mac OS problems. Ted Landau is
author of the highly regarded Sad Macs, Bombs, and Other Disasters.
www.everymac.com/
This site lists and discusses specifications and other tidbits about nearly every
Macintosh model ever made, especially including the many different clone vendors,
both large and small, that have made and sold Macs internationally.
www.xlr8yourmac.com/
News, reviews, and performance evaluations of various upgrades for the latest
Mac models, including upgrade processor cards, RAM, graphics cards, and other
speed-ups.
http://junlor.apk.net/~ijl/performa/
Problems and solutions focus specifically on Performa models and their owners,
offering advice for updates, workarounds, and other issues specific to Apple’s
consumer models.
Appendix B -f Online Resources 877
www.micromac.coin/
Aside from selling a wide variety of upgrading products, Micromac also offers an
excellent specifications search service on their Web site. Just choose your Mac
model from a menu, and the search will give you all the specifications for the model
including RAM types and possible upgrades.
www.maclimes.com/Iowend/
Low-End Mac offers news, insights, and special reports on the different upgrades
and updates you can add to aging Mac models to make them hum again.
http://msproul.rutgers.edu/macintosh/PCIcards.html
PCI Cards for Macintosh is a resource compiled by Mark Sproul. It lists
manufacturers and model numbers of all the PCI cards for Mac Mark has found on
the Net and elsewhere.
www.powermacintosh.com/
The Power Macintosh Resource Page offers news, tips, problem workarounds, and
other information about PowerPC-based Macs.
Internet Services
These links lead variously to Mac-based Internet Service Providers, Web server
specialists, and other sites that can help you get the most out of an Internet
connection.
www.macconnect.com/
This national, Mac-only Internet Service Provider offers expert help on getting your
Mac online as well as other services, such as Web serving.
www.alternativemedia.com/index.html
Alternative Media is a small Web-hosting and Mac-based design firm.
www.digitalforest.net
Digital Forest offers Mac OS server colocation (they’ll look after your Web server
computer for you) as well as FileMaker Pro database serving over the Web.
878 Appendixes
www.kepler-solutions.com
Kepler Internet solutions also offers colocation, Web serving, Web design, and other
services, all with a Mac-centric flare.
www.56k.com/
Find ISPs that specialize in high-speed Internet service, including 56 Kbps modem
service, ISDN, ADSL, and other technologies.
www.xd8l.com/
The Telechoice xDSL report offers information on high-speed DSL technologies,
adoption, and other news from around the U.S.
Software
Want Mac shareware, freeware, drivers, or other downloads? Look no further.
Included in this list are many, many ways to access the venerable InfoMac FTP
collection on various mirror sites around the world. Either use Fetch, Anarchie, or a
similar FTP program — or just enter the FTP URL in your browser to access
hundreds of Mac-related files.
www.download.com/
This cross-platform shareware/freeware service will automatically sense that you
are using a Macintosh (depending on your Web browser) and show you the
Macintosh interface, enabling you to search or browse for downloadable software.
www.kagi.com/
This site is easily the most popular shareware payment system for Mac
programmers and users. Here you’ll find listings for many, many different Mac
shareware authors, who allow you to use this interface to pay for and register their
products.
www.macdownload.com/
Macworld Magazine has created this Web site to catalog and chronicle the Mac
shareware world, including ratings and recommendations.
www.pht.com/info-mac/
This Web interface is a front-end and home page for the Info-Mac archive, the
popular and probably largest collection of Mac-related shareware, freeware, and
other types of downloadables. The Info-Mac FTP archive is mirrored to a number of
different FTP sites.
Appendix B 4 - Online Resources 870
Table B-3
InfoMac FTP Mirrors
Location
URL
US: Apple
ftp: //mi rror.app1e.com/mi rrors/
Info-Mac. Archi ve/
US: AOL
ftp : //mi rrors . aol . com/pub/ i nfo -mac/
US: Washington University,
St Louis
ftp: //wuarchi ve.wustl .edu/systems/mac/
info-mac/
US: Arizona Macintosh
Users Group
ftp://ftp.amug.org/pub/mi rrors/i nfo mac/
US: University of Hawaii
ftp: //ftp.hawai i .edu/mi rrors/i nfo -mac/
US: University of Delaware
ftp://fiesta.tsc.udel . edu/pub/mi rrors/
info-mac/
Australia: Australian
National University
ftp://sunsite.anu.edu.au/pub/mac/info-mac/
Austria: Vienna University
ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/systems/mac/info-mac/
Canada: ACT Limited
ftp://ftp.agt.net/pub/info-mac/
Colombia: University of
Los Andes
ftp://ftping.uniandes.edu.co/pub/Info-Mac
Finland: Finnish Academic
and Research
ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/mac/info-mac/
France: FranceNet
ftp: //ftp. francenet . f r/pub/mi roi rs/ info mac/
Germany: University of
Hannover
ftp: //f tp. rrzn . uni -hannover.de/pub/info-mac/
Hong Kong: HK SuperNet
ftp: //ftp. hk. super. net /pub /mi rror/i nfo-mac/
Israel: Israel Institute of
Technology
ftp: //f tp. techni on .ac.il /pub/ unsupported/
mac/info-mac/
Italy: CNUCE Institute of
CNR
ftp: //cnuce-arch . cnr . i t/pub/ i nf o mac/
Japan: Osaka University
ftp://ftp.center.osaka-u.ac.jp/info-mac/
Korea: Pohang University
of Science and Technology
ftp: //hwa rang . postech .ac.kr/pub/mac/
i nfo mac/
Netherlands: EuroNet
Internet
ftp://ftp.euro.net/Mac/info-mac/
New Zealand: Victoria
University of Wellington
ftp://ftp.vuw.ac.nz/info-mac/
(continued)
880 Appendixes
Table B-3 (continued)
Location
URL
NonA/ay: University of
Oslo
ftp://mac.uio.no/info-mac/
Singapore: National
University of Singapore
ftp://ftp.nus . sg/pub/mac/
South Africa: The Internet
Solution
ftp://ftp.is.co.za/info-mac/
Spain: Universitat
Rovira i Virgili
ftp://ftp.urv.es/pub/mi rror/i nfo-mac/
Sweden: Swedish
University Network
ftp: //ftp.sunet . se/pub/mac/i nfo-mac/
Switzerland: Swiss
Academic & Research
Network
ftp : //suns i te . cnl ab-swi tch . ch/mi rror/
info-mac/
Taiwan: National Chiao
Tung University
ftp://nctuccca.edu.tw/Macintosh/info-mac/
Turkey: Bilkent University
Preparatory School
ftp://ftp.bups . bi 1 kent.edu . tr/pub/i nfo-mac/
UK: Imperial College
Department of Computing
ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/info-mac/
Multimedia and Gaming
Digital video, MIDI, digital audio, 3D, and straight gaming news are all covered in
this section.
www.mac-dvr.com/DV/
The monthly scoop on the world of creating digital video, including a catalog of
links to other sites that cover digital video with varying degrees of Mac, cross-
platform, or other focuses.
Appendix B > Online Resources 881
www.el-dorado.ca.u8/~dmnews/
Digital Movie News is a site about creating digital movies and other content,
purporting to offer reviews, tips, and other tidbits about content creation software
and hardware.
www.compulersandmusic.com/
It’s a store for computer musical equipment, but it’s also a great information source
regarding digital audio and MIDI. Its strong leanings toward Mac solutions don’t
hurt, either.
www.sims.berkeley.edu/~jwang/cgi/av-faq/
Macintosh AV FAQ for tips on AV-style Macs.
www.3dfx.com/
3Dfx, Inc. maintains quite a bit of information about the Voodoo 3D acceleration
technologies, including news, companies, games, developers, and other things that
are affecting 3D gaming.
www.imgmagazine.com/
Web site for Inside Mac Games magazine, includes recent news, previews of the
current issue, and links to recently posted game demos.
www.macledge.com/
The Mac Gamer’s Ledge is a full-fledged e-zine dedicated to Mac gaming, including
news, reviews, and an extensive download library of demos, shareware games, and
freeware add-ons.
www.tikabik.com/
Yet another gamers’ site that includes industry news, 3-D news, reviews, demos,
and other special features.
Searching the TIL
I thought the Tech Info Library (TIL) deserved its own section. If you need
troubleshooting information directly from Apple, this is the best way to get it
without waiting on hold for their tech support people. On fact, they might charge
you for the call, too, making the Web interface for the TIL an even better deal.)
Unfortunately, this means you’ll need to se 2 u^ch the TIL, which can take a little
getting used to. The interface for searching the TIL may change at some point, but
882 Appendixes
until it does, these instructions may help you do a better job of searching for a
particular article. Remember that it takes a little patience, cleverness and tenacity
to get the right article to pop)-up in the TIL. But if your Mac is experiencing a
common enough problem, and you’ve done a good job isolating it, you may have
luck finding an answer in here.
Here’s how to search the TIL:
1. Bring up http : //ti 1 , i nfo . appl e . com/ in your Web browser.
2. You’ll see the search interface. Enter keywords in the text box, separating
each with a comma. (Words not separated by commas are treated as a single
phrase. If you search for ‘‘PowerBook 1400” you’ll get articles that include the
two words “PowerBook” and “1400” right next to one another. If you search for
“PowerBook, 1400” you’ll get articles that include any of the following: both
words, both words separated by other words, and articles that include one or
the other of the words.)
3. Choose the parts of the TIL articles that you’d like to search from the menu
above the keyword text box. Qt's often a good idea to begin searching article
titles, because you’re more likely to get the information you need from an
article that includes your keywords in the title. If that doesn’t net you much
information, you can broaden the search by returning to this page and
choosing Search For:, which searches the text of all articles.)
4. You can limit your search to certain types of hardware or software in the pull-
down menu.
5. Choose how you want the articles listed (by relevance is usually the best
choice).
6. With all these options selected, click the Search button.
A results page generated by the search engine will include a list of articles that may
or may not have the answer you’re looking for. If you chose to have the articles
listed by relevance, those that seem to have the best match for your keywords are
listed near the top. If not, you can hit the Back button in your browser to enter
different keywords or broaden your search.
I can offer a couple of other hints to help you find the article you need:
4 If you can’t find an article using very particular keywords, try to back away
from those keywords and broaden the search. If keywords such as
“PowerBook 1400, modem, connection” don’t get you the article you want, try
a search with just “PowerBook, modem” or even “PowerBook.” You’ll have
more articles to wade through, but this way you might find what you’re
looking for.
Appendix B 4- Online Resources 883
4* Try all known variations of Apple’s names for technologies if your keywords
don’t find a particular article. Different people write the technical articles and
they don’t all use the same style conventions. For instance, you can come up
with different articles by entering the keywords “HFS+,” “HFS Plus,” and “Mac
OS Extended format”, even though those keywords refer to the same Apple
technology. Even knowing an Apple code name, such as “Rhapsody” or
“Copeland”, will sometimes return results.
4“ Try different spellings, words, or other keywords, even if they aren’t Apple
technologies. For example, “specifications” might get more or different results
than “information,” or “telephone” might get better or different results than
“phone.” “Mouse” and “mice” return completely different results, as do
“notebook” and “laptop.” In other words, experiment.
Most of all, you need to be persistent. If all else fails, drop back from the TIL and
search the entire Apple Web site. (There should be a search box on the main Apple
index page at v/ww . appl e . com/.) This may not result in answers to specific
questions, but it will show you any Tech Notes articles (developer info), parts of
the Apple Web site, or news items that involve the product or technology that’s
giving you trouble.
what's on the
CD-ROM
A
I X
4 ^
I ncluded with this book is a CD-ROM that contains a
number of demo, freeware, and shareware programs
available for your use and testing. The CD-ROM is designed to
be as friendly as possible and offers a complete listing of its
contents. I’ve also included a listing here of some of the best
tools available on the disc, as well as some instructions for
accessing its contents.
How to Use the CD-ROM
The CD-ROM offers a few important files you can use to read
about the CD-ROM contents and how to access its files.
Files and folders on the main level of the CD-ROM include the
following:
4 Read Me. The Read Me file is a text file (you should be
able to view it using SimpleText, BBEdit Lite or any word
processor) that contains the very latest information I
was able to include at the time the CD-ROM was created,
including information that may have changed relative
to this appendix. You should read the Read Me file for
information about any major changes that affect the
CD-ROM.
"f Contents. The contents file is a text file that includes a
listing of the CD-ROM’s contents and the folders and
subfolders that contain the files. This file isn’t as pretty
as the HTML interface but will be useful if you’d like to
manually locate and drag a particular archive to your
hard drive.
886 Appendixes
"f Stufflt Expander. Aladdin System’s archive expansion utility is available on
the CD-ROM. If you don’t already have a Stufflt Expander version on your hard
drive, you’ll need to “unstuff” many of the other software distributions stored
on the CD-ROM in a compressed format. If you need Stufflt Expander, simply
drag the Stufflt Expander folder from the CD-ROM to your hard drive (or a
folder within your hard drive). You can then either double-click a Stufflt
archive (distinguished for its .SIT filename extension) or you can drag the
archive onto the Stufflt icon.
If you prefer, you may want to use the Stufflt installer, which is located in the Backup
Utilities folder on the CD-ROM. Double-click the installer to launch it and install Stufflt
Expander on your hard drive.
♦ Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. If you don’t already have a Web
browser installed on your Mac (or if you’d like to upgrade to one of the newer
versions included on this CD-ROM), pick either Netscape Navigator or
Internet Explorer from this CD-ROM. A Web browser will be necessary for
viewing the HTML documents used as contents pages on the CD-ROM.
4 index.html. This HTML document displays just like a Web page would in
either Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer. (If you use some other Web
browser such as Cyberdog, Mosaic, or MacWeb, this page should work fine in
those browsers, too.)
^ html. This folder includes the other HTML files that make up the CD-ROM’s
interface.
> archives. This folder contains the subfolders and archives used to store the
freeware, shareware, and demo files.
To view the CD-ROM’s contents, use the File ^:> Open File commaind in Internet
Explorer or the File Open Page command in Netscape Navigator. This should
bring up an Open dialog box. In that dialog box, choose the CD-ROM, and select the
file i ndex . html . Click OK to load the file in the Web browser and begin viewing the
CD-ROM’s contents.
Alternatively, you should be able to open the CD-ROM window and double-click the
i ndex . html document to have It load in your Web browser.
When viewing the HTML interface to the CD-ROM, the blue, underlined text
represents a hyperlink, which, when clicked, will take you to a new document.
(Notice that you may also be able to click folder icons and other icons to move
around.)
Appendix C > Whafs on the CD-ROM 887
You’ll encounter four different types of links on the CD-ROM:
4“ Local pages. These links take you to another HTML document that has been
created on the CD-ROM. The new page will tell you more about the files stored
on the CD-ROM.
4“ Web links. These hyperlinks will take you to a particular site on the World
Wide Web. To access them, you’ll need an active connection to the Internet
either through your office network or through an Internet Service Provider. If
you use a PPP connection, America Online, or a similar dial-up solution, you’ll
need to have the connection active before accessing one of these links. (The
link should say clearly whether or not it’s a Web link.)
4 Mail links. Some of the links on the CD-ROM (usually those that have a name
as the underlined text) are e-mail addresses. Click one of these and the
associated e-mail address will pop up in your e-mail program or in the
browser’s e-mail window, if it has e-mail capability. (If this doesn’t happen,
you need to set the e-mail preferences in your browser program and/or the e-
mail settings in the Internet Config file on your hard drive. If you have Mac OS
8.0 or above, you can use the Internet Assistant to set your e-mail
preferences.)
4 Files. The last of the links you’ll encounter are links to the actual files that are
stored on the CD-ROM. In most cases, when you click one of these links, you’ll
be asked where you want to save the file. Choose a folder on your hard drive,
and click OK to save the file.
If you click a file link and things don't work the way you planned (you get an error, for
instance, instead of a Save dialog box), click and hold the mouse button while you're
pointed at the file link. This should bring up a menu in Netscape Navigator and
Internet Explorer that will provide you with the option Save This Link As (Navigator) or
Download Link to Disk (IE).
If you’d prefer to forgo the HTML interface and just want to get at the file archives
themselves, double-click the archives folder on the CD-ROM and double-click a
subfolder to start your quest for the file in question.
Once you have the file on your hard drive, you may need to double-click the file or
drag it to the Stuffit Expander icon to get it to decompress and install itself on your
hard drive. If after decompression a new installer file of some sort appears, double-
click that file to install the software.
Once the software is properly installed, you can delete the original archive without
fear; it will remain on the CD-ROM if you need to access it again.
888 Appendixes
CD-ROM Contents
Each piece of software included on this CD-ROM has its own licensing agreement or
a similar document that you should read to completely understand how it’s being
distributed and what you need to do (if anything) to continue to use the software in
good faith.
Types of Software
In general, there are three different types of software you’ll encounter on this CD:
4 Freeware. With this sort of software, the author is allowing you to use the
program for as long as you need or want to use it without requiring payment.
It’s made available freely, either for everyone or under certain circumstances
(like for non-profit use). In most cases this does not mean the software is
“public domain” software — that is, the author still controls rights to the
software and hasn’t released the source code or any copyrights.
4“ Shareware. Often called try-before-you-buy software, these programs are
freely available and distributed, but require a payment for continued use after
a certain amount of time has passed or a certain amount of use has been
noted by the program. Shareware programs, written by small companies or
individuals and designed as an intermediate step between expensive
commercial software and freeware, are often reasonably priced. If you find
you enjoy using a program, I encourage you to register the program by paying
for it and thereby receiving a registration code that can be used to turn off
any shareware notices or turn on any additional features in the program. The
program’s distribution should include instructions for registering, although
you’ll also sometimes find instructions by choosing the About This option
from the Apple menu while the program is running in the foreground.
-4 Demos. Demonstration software is usually a limited version of a commercial
application that’s available for you to try out for a few days. (Other
demonstration versions can be used as often as you like, but only have limited
features.) In either case, you can use the program for as long as it continues to
work or given certain limitations. If you like the program, you’ll need to
purchase it and install the full version separately.
Programs on the CD-ROM
The following are the software programs Included on the CD-ROM. They’re
arranged according to the categories used to catalog them.
Appendix C -f t/Vhafs on the CD-ROM 889
Other software programs are discussed on the CD-ROM, but if a particular program
isn't listed here, the file archive isn't on the CD-ROM. Instead, the descriptions on the
CD-ROM point you to the Web pages or download sites for some great programs that
I wasn't able to include on the CD-ROM itself.
Internet Utilities
Netscape Navigator
Author: Netscape, Inc.
The most popular Web browser includes Java, Javascript, multimedia, and support
for special Netscape commands.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Author: Microsoft Corporation
Very popular browser now comes as the default browser for Mac OS installations.
Supports Java, multimedia, and special IE-only features such as Internet channels.
Backup Utilities
Drag'n'Back and Drag'n'Back Lite
Author: Enterprise Software
Back up your Mac’s hard drive without complex setup; just drag folders and files
that need to be backed up and set the rotation schedule.
Stuffit Expander
Author: Aladdin Systems
This freeware utility enables you to expand compressed files and archives stored in
the popular Stuffit compressed file format. Just drag a compressed file onto the
Stuffit Expander icon to expand. (Works with other common Mac file formats. In
conjunction with the shareware version of DropStuff with Expander Enhancer,
Stuffit can expand many DOS and UNIX compression schemes, too.)
Zipit
Author: Tom Brown
Zipit is a Macintosh program that zips and unzips archives in a format fully
compatible with PKZip for the IBM and zip implementations on other systems.
Super Save
Author: Michael Karnprath, Claireware Software
Super Save is a data protection utility. It performs two functions that help you
preserve your work in case your system should accidentally shut down or crash.
First, it saves all the keystrokes you make to a convenient save file. Secondly, it will
periodically tell the current application to save the document you are working on.
890 Appendixes
Keeper
Author: Michael Hamel, ADInstruments, LTD.
Keeper is an easy-to-use backup and archive application for the Macintosh.
Synk
Author: Randall Voth
Synk is a backup/synchronization program that can resolve aliases and archive
old files. It runs on all Macintosh computers except Mac Plus, Classic, and
Power Book 100.
Keystroke Recorder
Author: Hal Gumberl
Keystroke Recorder is an extension that records each keystroke into a file for later
retrieval. It’s a great last resort for recovering data after a system crash.
RAM Utilities
Memory Usage Monitor
Author: Stephen Becker
Most Mac crashes can be attributed to the way memory resources are handled.
Memory Usage Monitor was designed to help you address this issue by providing a
way to dynamically monitor memory demands on your computer, and increase the
stability of your machine’s configurations. You can use this program to track which
activities lead to memory configuration issues.
AppDisk
Author: Maverick Software
AppDisk is a RAM disk program that enables you to use extra RAM as a super-fast
hard disk. AppDisk RAM disks can be mounted and unmounted without restarting
your Mac, so it’s easy to change the size and use different RAM disks for different
applications.
RAM Disk Backup
Author: John Rethorst
Automatically back up your RAM disk to a disk drive when you shut down your
Mac, and restore the RAM disk when you start up your Mac.
Memory Mapper
Author: Jintek, LLC
Memory Mapper determines the boundaries of objects in memory by examining
low-memory globals, querying the Process Manager, and checking the page state of
each piece of memory (if Virtual Memory Is on). Consequently, Memory Mapper
requires System 7.
Appendix C 4- What's on the CD-ROM 39 1
Startup and System Utilities
TechTool (freeware version)
Author: MicroMat Computer Systems
The freeware version of TechTool can be used to analyze your Mac and take a look
at the hardware and software configuration. It’s also useful for some specific
housecleaning tasks such as rebuilding the desktop and zapping PRAM completely
and effectively.
InformlNIT
Author: Dan Frakes
InformlNIT is a DocMaker application that provides information on a mind-boggling
number of System Folder files — control panels, extensions, system folder contents,
and more — from both Apple and third-party developers. Information includes file
descriptions, who needs what, version numbers, RAM consumption, and helpful
tips (even a few “secrets’"). Where appropriate, files that are mainly used together
are organized into groups. Live URLs to information sources on the Web are
provided for files that require extensive discussion.
Conflict Catcher
Author: Casacly & Green
Conflict Catcher offers detailed information on thousands of files as well as links
to individual vendor information, including Web address, update address, e-mail
address, phone, fax, and physical address. It also provides powerful tools to
manage plug-ins and filters as well as fonts, control panels, startup files, and
extensions.
Mac Identifier
Author: Maurice Volashi, Flux Software
Mac Identifier was designed for Mac OS 7.5 (or later) users who can’t stand the
thought of their Macintosh not knowing its own model designation or what it looks
like. It is also useful for network administrators who manage networks consisting of
any 7.5 (or greater)-based Macintoshes.
Extension Overload
Author: Teng Chou Ming
Extension Overload 2.5 reviews 590 extensions and 223 control panels commonly
found in the Extensions folder and Control Panel folder on every Mac. For those
who do not know much about extensions and control panels, this program gives
you some insight so you can decide which ones are necessary for your computer
and which are not.
892 Appendixes
Speed Tester
Author: Brian Bergstrand
Speed Tester is based on a program called CheckTicks. This program makes 10,000
calls to GetNextEventQ, and then quits. Speed Tester expands on this idea. It lets
you perform multiple runs of the tests (up to five) to obtain a true average, instead
of relying on one test run. It includes a GetNextEventQ test, an integer test, a
floating-point test, and a graphics test. Also included is a small database of Macs to
compare your times to.
TatlleTech
Author: John Mancino, Decision Maker's Software
TattleTech is a Mac hardware and software profiler that reports over 850 distinct
items of information about the Mac on which it is running.
AutoBoot
Author: Karl Pottie
AutoBoot is a control panel/system extension that will restart your Macintosh after
a system error (bomb) or a freeze-up has occurred. AutoBoot ensures maximal
availability of unattended Macs.
Keep It Up
Author: Karl Pottie
KIU watches certain applications and monitors if they are still running. If an
application no longer runs because it unexpectedly quit or because the user quit it,
KIU will attempt to relaunch this application (and open certain documents) or restart
the computer. This will ensure your application is always running and available.
Symbionts
Author: Nivek Research
Symbionts is an extension that monitors the startup process. It displays the name
and number of bytes of memory each system extension allocates from the system
heap. The name and number appear beneath the extension’s icon, and since the
name is usually truncated. Symbionts also displays it in the menu bar. Symbionts
even shows the icons for those extensions that don’t normally reveal themselves.
Respond!
Author: Shawn Lee
Respond! is a control panel that brings a limited form of preemptive multitasking to
the Macintosh right now. And it runs on any Mac, 68k or PowerPC, with System 7.0
or later. No more waiting for Mac OS X. Even in Mac OS 8, if you hold down a menu
in the Finder, processes will not continue in the bcickground. With Respond!, you
can be holding down a menu (particularly useful with Sticky Menus in Mac OS 8), or
clicking in a zoom or close box (or the WindowShade collapse box in Mac OS 8), or
dragging a window or the thumb of a scroll bar, and processes will continue in the
background.
Appendix C 4- Whafs on the CD-ROM 893
Snitch
Author: Nifty Neato Software
Snitch is a Finder enhancement that extends the Get Info command, allowing you to
view and edit a variety of different information about a file, alias, folder, or disk.
Snitch itself is also extendible, enabling other software developers to create new
uses for it.
Font and Text Utilities
Fontasee Deluxe
Author: WM Enterprises
A program that prints banners, headlines, emd information about all the fonts in the
fonts folder.
Fonts Manager
Author: Edwin Hopkins, y^°dvantage
Fonts Manager is similar to the Mac OS Extensions Manager, but it manages fonts
instead of control panels and extensions. It allows the enabling and disabling of font
suitcases and printer fonts in sets. It supports the viewing and printing of font
samples, exporting of sets, importing of saved sets, balloon help, and a tutorial
topics system.
BBEdit Lite
Author: Bare Bones Software
The premiere Mac-based text editing program in a freeware version that has fewer
capabilities but is still very useful for text manipulation. Reads files larger than
SimpleText, changes between DOS, Mac, and UNIX text formats, and offers very
strong search-and-replace capabilities.
CopyPaste
Author: Script Software
This software features 100 extra clipboards, clipboard processing, saving clips
through restarts, application switching, clipboard archives, and Internet tools.
iSearch
Author: Script Software
iSearch lets you perform Boolean and literal text searches through files, folders,
disks, and CDs. It has an accelerated search engine that can work equally fast in the
background while you carry on your work. It uses drag and drop to define search
locations and remembers the most frequent locations used, listing them in a Search
in: drop-down menu.
894 Appendixes
UltraFind
Author: UltraDesign
UltraFind is a fast and flexible text search and file management program for the
Macintosh. Its text search feature shows words in context (in their original
sentence), searches in both live or preindexed modes, and even includes a built-in
thesaurus; this allows you to find documents related to a pairticular topic on your
hard disks, in text indexes, on the World Wide Web, and in newsgroups.
UltraFind Text Indexer
Author: UltraDesign
Text Indexer 2.0 is a modern indexing engine for Mac and PowerPC that pre-indexes
your documents, making text searches not just fast, but instant.
SmartKeys
Author: Maur/ce Volashi, Flux Software
Helps you type in four ways. First, it automatically corrects typing that violates
conventional typesetting rules, such as typing more than one consecutive space.
Second, it automatically corrects fast typing errors, which result in words that are
misspelled, such as “teh” for “the” and “THe” for “The”. Third, it can require
modifiers to engage the Caps Lock and the Help key, making them more difficult to
press inadvertently. Finally, in the event of a system crash, it can keep a log of what
was typed.
Multimedia Utilities
Sound Machine
Author: Rod Kennedy
Sound Machine plays many of the commonly found sound files on the Internet. It
can be used as a stand-alone player or as a helper application with your Web
browser.
Convert Machine
Author: Rod Kennedy
Convert Machine is a powerful sound file conversion program. Most audio files
dropped onto the application can be converted to AIFF, AU, WAVE, SDII, or MooV
format in either mono or stereo, with any of a number of compressions and
arbitrary sampling rates. It is ideal for converting audio files to formats commonly
used on the web.
iView
Author: Script Software
Powerful and easy-to-use tool for processing images, movies, QuickTimeVR,
animation, clip art, and sound; works with Canvas, QuarkXPress, Illustrator, and
Freehand files; and also provides font cataloging and archiving.
Appendix C ^ What's on the CD-ROM 895
SoundApp
Author: Norman Franke
SoundApp can play and convert sound files in a large number of formats. It
supports MPEG, QuickTime, WAVE, AIFF, Psion, M0D/S3M, and many others. It can
use playlists to group favorite files for playback and is AppleScriptable.
SCSI and Disk Utilities
Mt. Everything
Author: Horst Pralow
Mt. Everything is a control panel to help you manage your SCSI-bus and the devices
connected to it.
CacheSaver
Author: 5/. Clair Software
CacheSaver periodically saves (or flushes) the disk cache, thus minimizing data
loss should your Macintosh crash while you cire working. You can set CacheSaver to
flush the cache whenever your Mac is idle for more than a specific amount of time,
or it can do it automatically at regular intervals. CacheSaver also provides a hotkey
so you can flush the disk cache manually.
Disk Charmer
Author: Fabrizio Oddone
With Disk Charmer, you can erase any kind of disk, even using foreign formats such
as MS-DOS. Set the minimum allocation block size with the Mac OS Extended format
to free up trapped disk space. Create oversize disks by reducing catalog space (you
gain 8K on 800K disks, 18K on 1.4M disks, 1.5M on Zip disks), initialize floppy disks
in the background, copy floppy disks, verify floppy disk media, create DiskCopy
disk images from floppies, and recreate floppies from DiskCopy or DiskDup+ disk
images.
Drive Monitor
Author: Jude Giampaolo
Drive Monitor displays a window that lists the vitals for all of the currently
mounted drives. Drive Monitor 3.x is PowerPC only. Users of 68k-based machines
may be interested in one of the 2.x versions. Drive Monitor 3.x also requires MacOS
8.0 or newer.
DiskSurveyor
Author: Tom Luhrs, Twilight Software
DiskSurveyor shows you, graphically, what or who’s hogging space on your hard
drive. And you can create DiskSummary files that list all the files found on CD-ROMs
or any other volume. No longer will you have to waste valuable time navigating
through folder after folder, trying to figure out which files need to be archived or
trashed to free up precious disk space.
896 Appendixes
Alias Assistant
Author: Maurice Volashi, Flux Software
Enables your Macintosh to automatically delete all the alias files associated with an
original file when the original file is emptied from the Trash.
PowerBook Utilities
BatteryAmnesia
Author: Jeremy Kezer
BatteryAmnesia is a utility for any PowerBook that uses a nickel-cadmium (NiCad)
battery or nickel-hydride (NiMH) battery. Over time, these batteries are susceptible
to a memory effect, which can reduce their battery capacity. The memory effect
can be cured by fully discharging the battery before recharging it.
LCD Screen Tester
Author: The Syzygy Cult
This is a small, useful application for people with active matrix PowerBooks who
would like to test their screen for stuck pixels. It floods your screen with red, green,
blue, white, and black to make the culprit stuck pixel (or subpixel) show its ugly
head. This is so you can show your Apple Dealer that there is a problem with your
screen and that it needs to be replaced. This will only be useful for people with
active matrix screens.
Networking and Security
IPNetRouter
Author: Sustainable Softworks
IPNetRouter provides IP multihoming and routing under Macintosh Open
Transport. With IPNetRouter, you can use multiple IP interfaces at the same time
(such as Ethernet and OT/PPP) and specify additional routes for communicating
with more than one IP gateway. The built-in IP Masquerading feature allows an
entire network to simultaneously share a single Internet connection and end-user
account.
Sentry
Author: Quade Publishing
Sentry cdev 4.0.2 monitors your computer’s usage.
The Block
Author: Marc Mennigmann
The block is a clever access protection utility for your Mac.
Appendix C ♦ Whafs on the CD-ROM 897
Chooser User
KuXhox: Maurice Volashi, Flux Software
Lets you control who can change the owner name of a Mac. It also allows the owner
name to be changed at startup, either manually or automatically.
FCB Inspector
Author: Maurice Volashi, Flux Software
Allows users to peek at a Macintosh’s list of open files. It also provides information
about these files on demand and can close any that aren’t crucial to system
operation.
Miscellaneous Utilities
Dvorak keyboard layout
Author: Joseph J. Strout
Gives you a Dvorak-like keyboard layout for use with the Mac OS. This one is
specifically designed for people who want to rearrange the keycaps on an existing
Mac keyboard.
Finder Killer
Author: Thomas J. Bovo
FinderKiller will kill the Finder (well, actually it just quits the Finder). It has no
dialog boxes, no user interface, and does not attempt to relaunch the Finder.
Finder Reset
Author: Thomas J. Bovo
FinderReset will quit the Finder but then issue a relaunch command to the Finder
so it restarts immediately.
Apple Spec Database
Author: Apple
Apple Spec Database contains the technical specifications for many Apple
computer models, and therefore provides a convenient reference for determining
your model’s features to help you make critical upgrading decisions. Updates to the
database can be found at www. appl e . com/support/.
Index
NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS
8€ -Option-A-V, resetting monitor with,
660
§6 -Option-Esc key sequence, quitting
current application with, 745
§g -Power, resetting some PowerBooks
with, 745
§§ -Shift-3, taking screen shots of
documents with, 407
10Base2 Ethernet cabling
advantages of, 437-438
and connector, 438
10Base2 network, troubleshooting,
706-707
lOBaseT cabling
advantages of, 438-439
using Etherwave transceivers instead
of hubs with, 455
hub, 438
lOBaseT network, troubleshooting, 708
lOBaseT port, 436
2D graphics, increasing speed of by
upgrading RAM, 68
20th Century Mac, 99
200-ohm SCSI terminator, 191
3D accelerator cards, 474-478
adapter and software for using PC-
oriented cards in Macs, 475
choosing a RAVE, 476-477
installing a RAVE video card, 477-478
installing the Power3D, 475-476
QuickDraw 3D accelerator
manufacturers, 477
QuickDraw 3D software, 721-722
steps for fixing problems with,
720-721
troubleshooting, 720-725
3D graphics
accelerating, 470-478
increasing speed of by upgrading
RAM, 68
3Dfx, Inc., Voodoo graphics hardware
and software by, 473-474
3DMF (3-D Metafile), as basis for VRML
2.0 binary file format, 472
32-bit clean Windows system, 738
680x0 series CPUs, Motorola, 27
75/25 rule, 6-7
8mm tape drives, 35
8.3 convention for filenames, 486
? (question mark) icon, troubleshooting
when it appears, 599-608
A
©Home network, Web site address for
cable modem service information,
423
AAUI (Apple Attachment Unit Interface)
transceiver, 436
About command, checking software
version number with, 14, 15
AC-3 Dolby Surround Sound standard
support, 214
acceleration virtual engine, QuickDraw
3D RAVE as, 472-473
Adaptec, bridges by, 453
Adaptec Toast software, creating CD-R
discs with, 224
ADB bus (Apple Desktop Bus), 630-632
connections, 255-256
device limits, 630
maximum millamperes draw for
attached devices, 257, 630
numbering of devices, 257
(continued)
900 Index ^ A
ADB bus (continued)
troubleshooting, 631-632
typical chain length limitations, 630
versus SCSI, 254-255
ADB cables, 134
extensions for, 271
length limits of, 257
sources for, 257-258
troubleshooting, 632
ADB (Apple Desktop Bus) ports
connecting I/O devices to, 43
connecting modems to for power, 256
for Mac II and Centris/Quadra models,
255
input devices available for, 257-258
pass-through ports for connecting
other devices, 256
Adesso, Inc., ergonomic keyboards and
mice for Macs and PCs from, 257,
263
Adobe Photoshop. See Photoshop Lite
Edition (LE)
Adobe PostScript software, 370, 372-373
Adobe Type Manager (ATM), 389, 686
Agfa Web site address, 282
AIFF/AIFC, digital file format, 345
AirDock (Farallon) transceiver, 433
for integrating PowerBook into
network, 537
aliases, fixing bizarre behavior of, 787
allocation blocks, 619-621
calculating effect of HFS formatting
on, 619-620
effect of creating virtual drives
(volumes), 620
size of HFS Plus, 620-621
Alps Desktop Glidepoint series
trackpads (Cirque), 263
Alsoft PlusMaximizer utility, for
upgrading to HFS Plus, 622
Alva Access Group, OutSpoken text-to-
speech program by, 267
America Online Mac classified message
boards, 11
American Computer Exchange, Web site
address, 11
Anti-Virus for Macintosh (Symantec), 808
antivirus programs, 808
AppAdapter products (USR Systems),
Intel-compatible peripherals, 271
Appearance Manager, QuickDraw 3D, 470
Apple
add-on cards for serial and parallel
ports, 494
transition to PowerPC, 28-29
what’s in a name, 98-105
Apple Computer Web site address, 334
Apple clones. See Mac clones
Apple Desktop Bus (ADB)
connections, 255-256
input devices available for, 257-258
maximum millamperes draw for
attached devices, 257
numbering of devices, 257
sources for peripherals, 257-258
troubleshooting, 630-632
versus SCSI, 254-255
versus Universal Serial Bus (USB), 268
Apple Drive Setup utility, checking “no
drive icon” problems with, 605-606
Apple HD SC Setup utility, checking “no
drive icon” problems with, 605-606
Apple Extended Keyboard, power draw
of, 257
Apple Game Sprockets. See Game
Sprockets
Apple Imaging Web site address, 282
Apple IP Gateway software router, for
Internet access, 463
Apple Memory Guide PDF, downloading
from Apple’s Support Web site, 529
Apple monitors, troubleshooting,
659-660
Index 4- A 901
Apple or Mac-only monitors, installing,
302
Apple PC-Compatibility Card, upgrading,
500-501
Apple Phone software, included with
GeoPort Telecom software, 410
Apple PlainTalk
add-ons to improve capabilities of,
359-360
microphone for entering data, 44
Apple Printer Share technology, 384-385
Apple Remote Access Multiport server,
460
Apple Remote Access Personal server,
460
Apple Remote Access software
accessing networks remotely with,
459-461
components of, 460
Apple Standard Keyboard, power draw
of, 257
Apple System Profiler
accessing SCSI device information in,
238
Internet link for, 137
Apple Tech Info Library, Power
Computing information site, 106
Apple Text-to-Speech technology, 44
Apple Video Card, adding video-in
capability to older Macs with, 332
AppleFacts Online Archive, Web site
address for, 10
AppleShare IP server software, 447-448
AppleSingle PC text-encoding scheme,
491
AppleTalk, 56
activating services for a mac, 444
addresses, 443-444
file sharing, 445-447
Phase 2, 443
signing on, 444-445
troubleshooting network problems,
708, 710-713
types of networks, 442-443
zones, 444
AppleTalk-based network,
troubleshooting
file sharing problems, 712-713
how it should work, 71 1-712
AppleTalk control panel, choosing
network topology in, 444-445
AppleVision monitors, troubleshooting,
659-660
applications
checking version number of, 14
improving reliability and speed of
system by upgrading, 1^14
APS Technologies
higher capacity magneto-optical
drives by, 236
input devices available from, 257
SCSI cables and docks by, 546
archiving
files, 245
software for, 247
asynchronous bus, Apple Desktop Bus
as, 254
AT command set, for modems, 695-697
ATI Technologies, for PCI-based TV
tuners, 338
AU ((mu-law), digital audio file format,
345
audio editing, after mixing, 363-365
audio formats, usable with QuickTime,
345
audio I/O cards, for better audio,
361-362
audio mixing, using a Mac, 362-365
audio patch cables, 134
audio software, 365-366
plug-ins for, 366
902 Index 4- A-B
audio, troubleshooting
bad sound, 666-667
CD audio, 665
checking control panel settings, 665
no sound, 664-666
other sound interference, 665-666
setting the sound output quality, 667
Sound Monitoring Source setting, 665
sound recording, 668
audio/visual capabilities, checking
system for, 110
audio/visual oriented computers, 8
determining need for, 6
AudioShop (Opcode) audio software, 365
auto-injection of floppy disks, 38
AV Macs, 110
AV upgrades, 50
Aver Media, Web site address for, 334
AVI (Audio/Video Interleave) movie file
format, 325
Avid Technology, Web site address for,
334
background printing, troubleshooting
system freezes and crashes from,
678
backside cache memory, 33
backup plan, system
generational system, 247-248
how to back up, 245-251
implementing, 243-251
importance of, 248
what to back up, 244-245
backup software, 248-249
backup/storage devices, 227-252
importance of for increasing
productivity, 18
Iomega Jaz drive, 234
SyQuest EZFlyer, 234
SyQuest SyJet, 234-235
tape drives, 236-237
bandwidth, 404
Base64 PC text-encoding scheme, 491
batteries, PowerBook, 751-760
baud rate, for modems, 396
bays, PowerBook, 537-538
BeOS operating system, 109
Bernoulli removable media, 40
BinHex text-encoding scheme, 491
bis, meaning when referencing modems,
396
bitmapped images
display of on monitors, 294-295
black-and-white scans, 274
blessed System Folder, 599
blessing/reblessing the System Folder,
606-608
blinking ? icon, troubleshooting, 599-608
booting system from Mac OS CD-ROM
or floppy disk, 602-605
possible fixes for, 601-605
typical causes for, 599-600
BNC cabling, Ethernet, 437
Bookendz port duplicator (Newer
Technology), using to dock
PowerBook, 536, 537
bookmarks, including in backup plan,
244
boot disk, creating, 604
bottlenecks, 61-73
finding, 65-66
understanding, 63-65
BPS rates and modem standards, 397
Braille translation products (Duxbury
Systems), 267
bridges, 441
LocalTalk, 452-454
software only, 454
Brock Kyle, Mac OS model reference Web
site by, 105
Index B-C 903
bugs, 560, 561
possibility of fixes increasing system
speed, 13
Web sites for help with, 563
building-level Internet access, 462-463
security risks of, 463
bus topology, for networks, 432
c
cable modems, 55, 394
©Home network Web site for
information, 423
for high-speed data connections, 414,
422-423
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) Web site for
information, 423
Motorola CYBERSurfer, 423
cables and wiring, 134-135
ADB extension, 271
SCSI cables and connections, 188-190
sources for, 271
cabling schemes, for Mac networking,
432
cache memory (RAM), 31-33, 176-177
backside, 33
cost of upgrading, 76
increasing to speed up system, 65,
69-70
locating sockets in case, 132, 133
types of, 32
CalComp UltraSlate digitizer, 265
Caller ID modem add-on, 407
camcorders, getting video streams into a
mac with, 50
capacity
of floppy disk drives, 38
of hard drives, 36
carrier signal, modems, 404
Castlewood Orb removable drive,
235-236
Cayman Systems, bridges by, 453
CD Mounter Plus (Software Architects),
224
CD-R (Compact Disc Recordable) drives,
34, 39
software for creating discs, 224-225
technology for writing to, 212-213
CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewriteable)
drives, 34, 39
CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only
Memory) drives, 34, 39
adding to a mac, 19, 215-222
booting from an external, 215-216
choosing, 216-217
constant angular velocity, 210
constant linear velocity, 209
data transfer rates, 210-211
how they work, 208-210
identifying, 132
installing external, 217-218
installing internal, 218-222
pits and lands, 208
recordable, 212-213
rewritable, 213
seek time, 210
speeds of, 210-211
troubleshooting PC emulation
software problems with, 740
CD-ROM in book
Adobe Acrobat PDF viewer, 389
Adobe Type Manager, 686
AppDisk (Maverick Software), 758
Apple Error Codes, 780
Drag ‘n’ Back/Drag ‘n’ Back Lite
shareware, 249
Dvorak keyboard layout, 259
Easy Errors shareware program, 780
FindKiller and FindReset programs,
506
guidelines for downloading Apple
Spec Database, 388
(continued)
904 Index ^ C
CD-ROM in book (continued)
Internet link for downloading the
Apple System Profiler, 137, 199
Network Security Guard (MR Mac),
714
RAM Disk Backup (John Rethorst),
758
SCSlProbe utility, 610
SoundApp program, 346, 365
Stufflt Expander program on, 490
TechTool program for zapping PRAM
and saving and restoring PRAM
settings, 583
Ziplt shareware progam, 490
CD-ROM Toolkit by FWB, 222-223
CD-ROMs
burning, 208-209
checking software version number on,
14
related software, 222-225
CD utilities, 222-224
CDWorks (Casa Blanca Works) utility
software, 223
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
architecture, 27-29
cost of upgrading, 76
how it works, 26-29
individual system upgradeability,
149-153
locating in case, 132, 133
speed of, 27, 144-145
upgradeable, , 145-146
upgrade manufacturers, 146
upgrades, 160-161
upgrading to increase system speed,
16, 66, 68, 143
Centris/Quadra, specifications for,
100-101
CH Gamepad (CH Products) gamepad
controller, 483
CH Products Gamepad control panel,
configuring, 726-727
chcinnel depth, digital audio, 344
charge-coupled device (CCD) sensors
in digital cameras, 286
in scanners, 274
checksums, 398
Chooser, built-in Printer Sharing, 385
CHRP (Common Hardware Reference
Platform) specification, 107
CISC (Complex Instruction Set
Computing) architecture, 27
Claris Emailer, translation of encoded file
attachments by, 491-492
ClarisWorks, version to version RAM
requirements, 65
Clear to Send command, from computer
to modem, 400
clock chipping, 154
clock-multiplied processors, 144-145
clock speed, 27, 144-145
clones. See Mac clones
Club Mac, for equipment and upgrade
components, 12
coax cabling, Ethernet, 437
Coda Music Technology, MIDI software
by, 367
codecs. See QuickTime video codecs
color depth
checking when purchasing digital
cameras, 287
for Macs, 310
color LaserWriters, maintenance of, 684
color monitors, versus grayscale, 52
color printers
inkjet, 371,
laser, 377
color proofing printers, 379
color scanners, 274-275
ColorSync monitors, troubleshooting,
659-660
Index C-D 905
Common Hardware Reference Platform
(CHRP) specification, 107
communication, between computers,
54-56
communications slot (comm slot) port,
adding Ethernet with, 437
compact disc drives, 34, 38-40
Compact Pro (Cyclos) archive format,
489
decompressing files with DropStuff
with Expander Enhancer add-on,
491
Complex Instruction Set Computing
(CISC) architecture, 27
components, for upgrading Macs,
131-134
compression and codecs, QuickTime
video, 326-328
compression scheme, checking when
purchasing digital cameras, 288
Configure: pull-down menu, TCP/IP
control panel, 425
Conflict Catcher (Casady and Greene),
826
conflict management software, 826-828
Conley SoftRAlD software, 205-206
Connect via: pull-down menu, TCP/IP
control panel, 425
constant angular velocity, CD-ROM
drives, 210
constant linear velocity, CD-ROM drives,
209
ConversionPlus (Davitz) translation
program, 488
COPStalk software (COPS, Inc.)
adding AppleTalk services to a
Windows 98/Windows 95 PC with,
458-459
LocalTalk cards for PCs by, 459
copying from one disk to another,
increasing speed of, 14
CorWriter and Write:Outloud (Don
Johnston), PlainTalk add-ons, 359
CPU. See Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Craig Issacs (Dantz Corporation),
backup tips from, 251
CRT (cathode ray tube), 295
versus Sony’s Trinitron monitors, 52
Ctrl-3§ -Power, resetting your mac with,
745
cursor focusing option, programmable
mice, 264
Cyberian Outpost, for equipment and
upgrade components, 12
D
DAT (digital audio tape) drives, 35
as backup storage devices, 237
Data Communication Equipment (DCE),
399-400
data-compression protocols, for
modems, 398-399
data mirroring (RAID level 1), 205
data rate, QuickTime, 329
data recovery, from damaged drives, 244
data storage on a mac, 33-41
reasons to add, 35-36
types of, 33-35
data striping (RAID level 0), 204
Data Terminal Equipment (DTE), 399-400
data transfer rates
CD-ROM drives, 210-211
DVD-ROM drives, 214
daughtercards, 26
for backside cache memory, 33
types of upgrades, 148
upgrading, 161-164
DAVE (Thursby Software Systems), for
Mac Windows-like networking
services and protocols, 459
Davitz ConversionPlus translation
program, 488
Davitz MacLinkPlus translator, 57-58
how it works, 488
906 Index 4- D
death chimes, troubleshooting, 577-578
defragmenting hard drives, 63, 800-801
degaussing computer monitors, 649
desktop, rebuilding to fix behavior
problems, 787, 788
desktop printer
solutions for print problems, 680-682
troubleshooting desktop icon creation
problems, 679-680
desktop printing
fixing endless loop error, 682
troubleshooting and fixing problems
with, 680-682
desktop space, increasing, 71
Detente (Reply) control panel, for PC-
compatibility expansion card, 500
device drivers
checking version number of, 14
improving reliability and speed by
upgrading, 13
DigiDesign
audio I/O cards by, 361
high-end audio/video workstations,
365
ProTools series of digital editing
workstations, 365
SoundDesigner II audio software, 365
digital audio
compression, 346-347
determining disk space needed for
recordings, 344
disk space consumed by stereo audio
samples, 344
file formats, 345
frequency, 343
hardware, 361-366
pro-level sound cards, 361
sampling, 343
digital audio tape (DAT) drives, 35, 230
as backup storage devices, 237
digital cameras, 48-49, 273, 285-286
Apple QuickTake 200, 285
as input device, 42
as upgrade consideration, 5
availability of extra features for, 288
basic questions for comparing quality
and performance, 287-288
checking for pass-through video
capabilities, 289
desirable image file formats for high-
quality images, 288
desirable image transfer interface, 288
downloading images to a mac,
289-291
how they work, 286
image storage in, 286
software for, 288-289
shopping for, 287-289
storage mechanisms, 288
using with a mac, 289-291
digital editing workstations, 365
digital file format, AIFF/AIFC, 345
digital linear tape (DLT) drives, as
backup storage devices, 237
digital modems, 55
digital movies, 324-325
compression and codecs, 326-328
data rate needed for television quality,
325
file formats, 325-326
key frames and data rates, 329
optimizing for output medium, 325
Digital Performer (Mark of the Unicorn),
audio software, 366
digital recording studios, removable
drives used by, 235
digital sampling, frequency of, 343
digital subscribe line (DSL). See DSL
connections
digital versatile discs. See DVD-ROM
(Digital Versatile Disc-Read Only
Memory) drives
Index D 907
digital video, 319-338
basics, 320-329
basic necessities for creating quality,
322
cabling problems, 663
cameras, 49
common problems one may
encounter, 663-664
factors that affect how well a movie
plays, 321
getting started with, 336-337
HDl-45 connector problems, 663
process, 319-320
QuickTime software problems, 664
speed problems, 663
troubleshooting, 662-664
VRAM relationship problems, 663
what it's needed for, 320-322
digital video cameras, 49
digital video discs. See DVD-ROM (Digital
Versatile Disc-Read Only Memory)
drives
Digital Vision, Web site address for, 334
digitizers, 264-266
digitizing software, for creating quality
digital video, 322
DIMM (Dual Inline Memory Module), 30
DirectCD (Adaptec) software, 224, 225
DirectX graphics architecture,
incompatibility with PC-
compatibility expansion cards, 495,
738
Disk First Aid utility, 600
repairing “no drive icon” problems
with, 605-606
versus Norton Utilities, 625
Disk Fit Pro/Disk Fit Direct, backing up
individual Macs with, 248
disk fragmentation, 62-63
disk drives, 613-615
advantages and disadvantages of
external hard drives, 192
advantages and disadvantages of
internal hard drives, 193
deciding which hard drive to buy,
194-197
Drive Setup utility for managing
Apple-branded with IDE hard drive,
614
drivers and mounting, 615-616
HD SC Setup utility for managing, 614
testing, 600-601,616-617
utilities for managing third party
drives, 614
Disk First Aid, running to fix fragmented
disk, 787
Disk Tools software disk, booting system
from, 604
DiskSavers, recovery of data from
damaged drives by, 628
DLT (digital linear tape) drives, as
backup storage devices, 237
docks, PowerBook, 535-537
document back ups, as part of backup
plan, 244
document loading, increasing speed of,
68
documents, taking screen shots of, 407
DOS and Windows emulation
files and floppies, 56-58
software, 58-59
upgrading a mac for, 19
working with on a mac, 56-60
DOS and Windows programs
running on a mac, 492-505
sharing, 505-508
DOS-compatible cards, for Macs, 60
DOS-compatible Macs from Apple,
496-497
DOS file archives, 488-491
compression schemes used for,
488-491
DOS file formats, translating on Macs,
487-488
908 Index 4 ^ D
DOS files, sharing on the Mac, 486
DOS media, reading on the Mac, 487
dot-matrix printers, 53
dot pitch, of monitors, 52, 299-300
dots per inch (dpi)
for printers, 370
importance of for monitors, 297-299
Dr. Solomon’s Virex for Macintosh, 808
Drag ‘n’ Back/Drag ‘n’ Back Lite
shareware, using for system
backups, 248-249
Dragon System’s PowerSecretary,
speech-to-text recognition systems,
267
DRAM (Dynamic Random Access
Memory), 30
drawing tablets, moving the mouse
pointer with, 46
DrawSprocket, Apple Game Sprocket,
479
drive container, for storing PC files on a
Mac, 500
Drive Setup utility, 610
checking “no drive icon” problems
with, 605-606
drive speed, 37-38
drives
8mm tape, 35
CD-R (Compact Disc-Recordable), 34,
39
CD-ROM (Compact Disc-Read Only
Memory), 34, 39
CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable), 34,
39
DAT (digital audio tape), 35
floppy disk, 38
harddisk, 36, 37, 110, 181-192
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics), 37,
no
Iomega Jaz, 233-234
Iomega Zip, 35, 227-228, 229, 230-232
removable cartridge, 227-236
SCSI, 36, no, 184-192
SuperDrive floppy disk, 38
SyQuest SyJet, 35
tape, 35
DriveSavers, data recovery by, 244
DropStuff with Expander Enhancer, using
with Stuff It Expander, 491
drum scanners, 276
DSL connections
different types of technologies, 420
getting more information about on the
Web, 422
high-speed data communications
with, 415
how to get service, 421-422
how they work, 420-421
DT&T Service
for replacement PowerBook logic
boards, 514
PowerBook screen replacements and
service from, 535
DTE/DCE connections, 399-401, 402
Dual Inline Memory Module (DIMM), 30
Duo Dock docking station, 105, 535-537
Duo Floppy Adapter, for connecting
Duos to an HDI-20 interface, 537
Duo series portable computers, 105
Duxbury Systems, Braille translation
products by, 267
DVC format, transmitting digital images
between cameras and computers
with, 326
DVD-RAM (Digital Versatile Disc-Random
Access Memory) drives, 39
DVD-ROM (Digital Versatile Disc-Read
Only Memory) drives, 35, 39, 207
AC-3 Dolby Surround Sound standard
support, 214
choosing, 216-217
data transfer rates, 214
installing, 217-222
Index D-E 909
MPEG-2 video compression standard,
214
sources for, 215
technology, 213-215
upgrading a mac with, 19, 208
DV/DVCAM, advantages of, 335-336
Dvorak keyboard layout, 259-260
dye sublimation printers, 379
dynamic range, of scanners, 278
E
e-mail attachments, translating between
PC and Mac formats, 491-492
e-mail files, including in backup plan, 245
e-mail server, in AppleShare IP package,
448
editing software, needed for creating
quality digital video, 322
ELO TouchSystems, touch screens by,
266
Emagic
audio I/O cards by, 361
Logic Audio software, 366
Energy Saver control panel, resolving
setting conflict problems with,
832-833
Energy Star-compliant monitors, control
panel for, 646
Epson America
Web site address, 282
Zip-compatible drives by, 233
ergonomic keyboards, 260
sources for, 257-258
ergonomic mice, 46
sources for, 257-258
error correction standards, for modems,
398
error messages, troubleshooting and
fixing, 777-782
Ethernet cable, 134, 432, 437-439
installing printers with, 381-382
Ethernet hub, installing, 457-458
Ethernet networks, 56, 435-440
adding a PC to the Mac network,
458-459
determining cable needs for
installation, 455
Etherwave transceivers for, 455
hooking a Mac into a PC network, 459
installing, 455-461
installing the hub, 457-458
options for major Mac models,
435-436
speeds available, 435-436
Etherwave transceivers (Farallon), for
Ethernet networks, 455
EveryMac Web site, complete reference
for Mac Os models, 105
expansion bays, PowerBooks, 537-538
expansion bus, determining type of in
system, 109-110
expansion cards
differences in, 136
for connecting I/O devices, 43
identifying, 136
installing, 137
PDS (Processor Direct Slots), 87-88
types of upgrades, 147
upgrades, 156-158
video in, 332-334
Express Modem control panel, for
GeoPort modems, 412
Extension Overload shareware,
identifying System Folder extension
conflicts with, 823
extensions
conducting a conflict search, 824-826
conflict management software,
826-828
conflict resolution, 820-823
defined, 814-815
diagnosing, 817-820
(continued)
910 Index 4- E-F
extensions (continued)
identifying conflicts, 813-820
solving the conflict, 828-830
what’s a conflict, 815-816
what’s not a conflict, 816-817
Extensions Manager, conflict
management software
using to identify extension conflicts,
821-823
versus Conflict Catcher, 826-827
external modems, 395-396
installing, 413-414
troubleshooting, 690-691
external removable media drives
installing, 238-241
testing, 240-241
EZ Flyer removable media, 41
F
Fast Ethernet local area networks, 56
Fast SCSI or Fast SCSI-2 transfer
protocol, 188
Fast/Wide SCSI or Fast/Wide SCSI-2
transfer protocol, 188
fax modems, 407-408
Fighter Stick (CH Products) joystick, 482
file server, in AppleShare IP package, 447
file sharing
over local area networks, 56, 445-447
possible problems with, 715
File Sharing control panel, 445-447
setting permission levels in, 714-715
file sharing security, 713-715
files, fixing fragmented, 62-63
FileSaver program (Norton Utilities),
activating to constantly monitor
a mac, 626
Finder, running system without to speed
up Virtual PC sessions, 506
FireWire, 189
adding video-in capability with, 333
ports, 43
video-in interface, 330
firmware upgradeable, modems,
408-409
fixed-resolution monitors, versus
multiscan, 52
flash upgradeable, modems, 405
FlashBack (Aladdin Systems), use of a
backup utility, 247
flatbed scanners, 47, 275
flight controller, determining need for, 6
floppy disk, checking software version
number on, 14
floppy disk drives, 38
for data storage on Macs, 34
identifying, 132
Font folder, cleaning up, 687
font management programs, 687
font suitcase, creating master, 687
font troubles, troubleshooting, 685-689
font doesn’t appear in menus, 686
jagged font appearance, 687-688
printed font is wrong, 689
wrong font is displayed, 688-689
font types
bitmapped, 685
PostScript, 685-686
TrueType, 686
fonts, testing for system conflicts caused
by, 834
fragmentation. See disk fragmentation
fragmented files, 62-63
freezes and hangs, first aid for, 784-786
caused by heat and internal problems,
786
frequency, of digital audio samples, 343
FTP server, AppleShare IP server
software, 442, 448
FujiFilm, Zip-compatible disks by, 233
FWB CD-ROM Toolkit, 222-223
FWB Hard Disk Toolkit, 610
checking “no drive icon” problems
with, 605-606
Index ^ G-H 911
G
G2 Macs. See PowerPC
G3 Macs. See PowerPC
game controllers, 480-484
configuring, 727
flight (driving), 482-484
gamepads, 482
input device conflicts, 728
joysticks, 481-482
manufacturers, 481
troubleshooting, 725-727
Game Sprockets (Apple), 469, 479
DrawSprocket, 479
InputSprocket, 480
missing driver problems, 726
NetSprocket, 479
SoundSprocket, 479
troubleshooting, 725-727
gaming and multimedia, 469-484
Gamepad (CH Products) control panel,
726-727
gamepads, sources for, 257-258
games
including saved in backup plan, 245
increasing speed of by upgrading
RAM, 68
games-/home-oriented computers, 8-9
gaming accessories
controllers for improved playing, 72
determining need for, 6
Gefen Systems, ex«tend«it series of
stand-alone and rack-mounted
devices, 271
General MIDI, 349-350
instruments table, 350-355
generational backup system, 247-248
GeoPort modems
Express Modem control panel, 412
installing, 414
problems using with PC Compatibility
Cards, 735
Telecom adapter (pod) for, 86
using for modem communications,
409-411
Get Info command, checking software
version number with, 14
Get Info dialog box, checking software
version number in, 14, 15
Global Village modems, 396
problems using with PC Compatibility
Cards, 735
Teleport software for, 412
graphics, determining system type for,
6-7
graphics oriented computers, 8
graphics tablets
as input devices, 42, 264-266
checking manufacturers Web sites for
problems, 636
troubleshooting, 636-637
using with ADB, 265
grayscale monitors, versus color, 52
grayscale scanners, 274
Griffin Technologies, video card and
monitor adapters by, 314
grounding strap, importance of, 94
H
halftone images, printing, 370
handheld scanners, 47, 275
hard drives
adding, 192-206
advantages and disadvantages of
different types, 192-194
allocation blocks, 619-621
capacity of, 36
connecting, 203
cost of upgrading, 76
deciding which to buy, 194-197
(continued)
912 Index 4 H-
hard drives (continued)
defragmenting and optimizing,
800-803
determining technology in systems,
110
drivers and mounting, 615-616
effect of speed of on how digital video
plays, 321
first aid for bizarre behavior of,
788-789
fixing and file recovery, 624-628
for data storage on Mac, 33-34
formatting and partitioning, 619-624
formatting to optimize, 622
getting info off the older drive, 204
HFS and HFS Plus formatting for,
619-621
identifying, 132
increasing system speed by
upgrading, 17, 66
optimizing, 802-803
partition tuning, 623-624
partitioning, 622-623
preliminaries before installing,
199-200
reasons for upgrading, 35-36, 180-181
removing old, 200-202
results of partitioning, 623
SCSI installation, 202-203
speed of, 37-38
technologies, 36-37, 110, 181-192
testing for problems after backing up,
600-601,616-617
upgrade paths for major Mac OS
models, 195-196
upgrading and installing, 199-204
utilities for fixing and file recovery,
624-628
working with new, 203-204
hardware handshake cables, for external
modems, 395
hardware maintenance, 794
hardware problems, troubleshooting,
563-564
hardware versus software issues,
guidelines for determining, 12-15
Hewlett-Packard, Web site address, 283
HFS and HFS Plus formatting, for hard
drives, 619-621
HFS Plus-compatible drives,
defragmenting, 801
HFS Plus format
advantages of, 621
Alsoft Plus Optimizer utility for, 801
Alsoft PlusMaximizer utility for
upgrading to, 622
incompatibility of Norton Utilities
with, 625
reasons to avoid using, 621
high-speed Internet and online service
connections, 414-423
home-/games-oriented computers, 8-9
horizontal refresh rate, 296
hub. See network hub
hubs and switches, Ethernet, 439-440
HyperCard, version to version RAM
requirements, 65
I
IBM/Motorola PowerPC series CPUs, 28
icons, rebuilding the desktop to fix
problems with, 787
IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) drives,
37, no
for Mac versus Intel-compatible
computers, 182-184
Mac support for installing additional
in system, 183
technology, 181-184
upgrade issues, 183-184
versus SCSI drives, 182
identify command support, IDE drives,
182
Index i 913
IEEE 1394 technology. See FireWire
IMA/ADPCM, audio-compressor
technology, 346
iMac, 86, 98
support for external SCSI, 195
image-editing software, bundled with
photo scanners, 276
images, getting into your computer, 44
incremental backup system, 245
incremental updates, 249-250
Information Display Systems, LCD touch
screens by, 267
Informlnit shareware, identifying System
Folder conflicts with, 823
Initio’s Miles SCSI card, 205
inkjet printers, 53, 378-379
advantage of for color proofs, 375
cost per page, 371-372
ink cartridge refill packages for, 378
speed of versus laser printer, 5
input devices and scanners, 629-643
input/output devices, 42, 253-271
increasing productivity by upgrading,
18
installing, 270-271
programmable Kensington Turbo
Mouse, 253-254
sources for, 257-258
special need products, 267
input/output subsystem, 42-54
how it works, 24
InputSprocket, Apple Game Sprocket,
480
installing
Apple or Mac-only monitor, 302
DVD-ROM drives, 217-222
Ethernet networks, 455-461
external modems, 413-414
external removable media drives,
238-241
GeoPort modems, 413-414
internal modems, 412-413
internal removable media drives,
241-243
input devices, 270-271
I/O devices, 43
LocalTalk bridges, 452-455
LocalTalk hubs, 452
LocalTalk network, 450-452
LocalTalk printer, 381
logic board, 158-160
monitors, 302-305
multisync monitor, 302
PC-compatibility expansion cards,
498-500
PC emulation software for the Mac OS,
504-505
Power3D accelerator cards, 475-476
printers, 380-385
RAID, 204-206
RAM, 174-176
scanners, 283-285
SCSI expansion cards, 198-199
SCSI hard drives, 199-204
two or more monitors, 315-316
VGA-compatible monitor on your Mac,
303-305
video cards, 314-315
VRAM, 312
Intel-compatible peripherals, 271
Interex, SCSI cables and docks by, 546
interface types, video-in hardware,
329-331
internal modems, 395
installing, 412-412
troubleshooting, 691-692
internal removable media drives
installing, 241-243
Macs that can accept, 242
testing, 242
internal slots, PowerBooks, 529-531
914 Index 4^ l-J
International Telecommunications Union
(ITU), modem standards by, 396
Internet access
building level, 462-463
security issues, 464-465
setting up, 423-425
technology for, 424-427
through Internet gateways, 463-465
Internet and intranets, 461-466
Internet communication, between
computers, 54
Internet connection
determining system need for, 7
first aid for system crashes related to,
784
high speed, 414-423
increasing speed of with a modem
upgrade, 69
Internet e-mail feature, AppleShare IP
server software, 442
Internet gateways, Internet access
through, 463-465
Internet router manufacturers, 466
Internet Setup Assistant, Mac OS 8.0 or
above, 423
changing default mail and news
servers with, 717
interpolated resolution, for scanners,
278
intranets, use of TCP/IP protocol by, 424
Invision Interactive, MIDI software by,
367
I/O devices
hooking up, 43
types of, 43-54
Iomega Jaz drives, 233-234
adding to increase data storage
capabilities, 35
compressing data for storage on
disks, 234
disks for data storage, 41, 230-234
versus EZFlyer and SyJet, 234
Iomega Zip drives, 35, 227-228, 229,
232-233
as part of system upgrade, 6
clear plastic section on disks, 233
clones of, 233
disks for data storage, 41, 229-234
formatting disks, 232
readability of PC-formatted disks on
Macs, 232
Iomega ZipPlus drive, 232
invisible file, making visible with
ResEdit, 713
IP address information, TCP/IP control
panel, 425
IPNetRouter (Sustainable Software), 464
IRTalk transceivers, 433
ISDN adapter, cost of upgrading to, 77
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital
Network) connections, 55, 394
advantages over modems, 417
Basic Rate access, 417
getting the service, 418-419
high-speed communications with,
414-419
manufacturers of solutions for Macs,
419
Primary Rate access, 417
ixMicro, for PCI-based TV tuners, 338
J
JABRA earphone, 359
Jaz drives. See Iomega Jaz drives
joysticks, 481-482
adapters, 481
determining need for, 6
getting data into computer with, 44
manipulating the mouse pointer on
screen with, 46
sources for, 257-258
Index -f K-L 915
K
Kensington
cleaning products for mice and
trackballs, 636
other input devices by, 258
Turbo Mouse by, 253-254
key frames rate, QuickTime, 329
Keyboard control panel, changing
keyboard layout with, 259-260
keyboards
as input devices, 42, 44-45
changing layout for, 259-260
cleaning up after a spill, 637-638
compatibility between PCs and Macs,
44-45
considerations for upgrading, 5, 6
Dvorak layout, 259-260
ergonomic, 257-263
for users with special needs, 267
increasing productivity by upgrading,
18, 72
original for Mac Classic, 258
removing key caps from, 637, 638
sources for, 257-258
troubleshooting, 633, 637-638
typical for Macs, 45
with built-in trackpads, scanners, or
joystick-like pointers, 260-261
KeyTec, MagicTouch series touch
screens, add-ons, and monitors, 267
kilobytes (K), 31
kiosk presentations, using touch screens
for, 266-267
Kodak, Web site address, 283
Korg, audio I/O cards by, 361
L
LaCie Ltd., Web site address, 283
LANs. See local area networks (LANs)
laser printers, 53, 374-377
advantages over other printers, 375
cost per page, 371-372
RAM use in, 375-376
speed of versus inkjet printers, 5
tips for shipping, 378
toner for, 376-377
typical RAM quantities for, 376
LaserWriter 8 printer driver, using with
non-Apple-branded printers,
682-683
LaserWriter, printer problems, 682-683
lead acid batteries, PowerBook 100,
753-754
Level 1 cache memory, 32
Level 2 cache memory, 32
Level 3 cache memory, 32
Lilon (lithium ion) batteries, PowerBook,
755-756
lines per inch (Ipi), effect on halftone
images, 370
LineShare, serial port sharing software,
461
Linocolor, Web site address, 283
local area networks (LANs)
communicating with other computers
over, 56
increasing speed of by upgrading, 66
LocalTalk network
architecture, 433-435
basic installation of transceiver and
cabling, 451
bridges, 452-454
cabling and solutions manufacturers,
451
cabling for small local area networks,
56, 432, 433-434, 452
connecting to Ethernet networks,
452-455
hardware and cabling needed for
installing, 450
hubs for, 452
(continued)
916 Index 4* L-M
LocalTalk network (continued)
increasing network speed by
upgrading to Ethernet, 66
installing, 450-455
PhoneNet cabling, 433-434, 435
software set up for network access,
451
troubleshooting, 706-707
LocalTalk printer, installing, 381
Logic Audio Discovery (Emagic) audio
software, 365
logic board
cost of upgrading, 76
performing the installation, 158-160
types of upgrades, 147
upgrades, 158-160
upgrading to increase system speed,
16, 143-161
Logical Block Addressing (LBA) support,
IDE drives, 182
lossy compression, 326
LSI 20 standard, for removable disk
drives, 227
Lucid Technologies, audio I/O cards by,
361
M
Mac llfx, SCSI termination on, 191
Mac ADB peripherals, sources for,
257-258
Mac archive formats, 488-491
Mac cases, opening
Centris 610/660AV, 119-120
Centris 630, 122
Centris 650, 118-119
G3 Desktop, 128-130
G3 Minitower, 130
LC,LC II,LCIII, 118
LC and Performa 520, 550, 575, 580,
MacTV, 126-127
Mac II, llx, llfx, 115-116
Mac Ilex, llci, 1 16
Mac llsi, 116-117
Mac llvx, llvi, 118-119
Performa 400 series, 118
Performa 5200/5300 series, 127-128
Performa 600, 118-119
Performa 61 10 series, 1 19-120
Performa 630, 6200, 6300 series, 122
Performa 6400, 124-126
Power Macintosh 5200/5300 series,
127- 128
Power Macintosh 6100, 119-120
Power Macintosh 6500, 124-126
Power Macintosh 7100, 118-119
Power Macintosh 7200, 7300, 7500,
128- 130
Power Macintosh 8100, 123
Power Macintosh 8600 and 9600, 130
Power Macintosh 9500, 123-124
Quadra 605, 118
Quadra 610/660AV, 1 19-120
Quadra 630, 122
Quadra 650, 118-119
Quadra 700, 1 16
Quadra 800, 123
Quadra 840AV, 123
Quadra 900/950, 123-124
WGS 60, 119-120
WGS7150, 118-119
WGS 7250/7350, 128-130
WGS 80, 123
WGS 8150, 123
WGS 90, 123-124
WGS 9150, 123-124
Workgroup Server (WGS) 70, 118-119
Mac Classics
opening Color and Color 11 model
cases, 114-115
opening form factor cases for
upgrading, 113-114
Index 4^ IVI 917
Mac clones
determining upgradeability of, 10
Motorola, 107-108
Power Computing, 105-107
UMAX, 108-109
Mac Components Engineered, for
PowerBook replacement hard
drives, 534
Mac gaming, 478-484
Apple Game Sprockets for writing
games, 479
control devices for, 479
Mac model, determining, 97-98
Mac networking technologies, 432-449
cabling schemes, 432
protocols, 432
topology, 432-433
Mac OS
backward compatibility of, 27
daily care of, 792-793
deleting old versions of applications,
799
deleting unnecessary software, 797
deleting unnecessary temporary files,
798
finding and deleting duplicate
applications, 795-796
finding and removing duplicate
preferences, fonts, and extensions,
796-797
finding and removing old e-mail
attachments and downloads, 798
problems reinstall won’t cure or solve,
839-840
reasons for doing new installation into
new System Folder, 838
reasons to reinstall, 838-839, 840-841
reinstalling, 841-851
schedule of regular maintenance and
care, 791-794
spring cleaning, 795-799
using Norton Utilities to automate
certain maintenance tasks, 792
Web site for model reference, 105
Mac Picasso 540 (Village Tronics)
accelerator card, 475
Mac Plus
mouse on, 261
SCSI termination on, 191
Zip drive recommendation for,
227-228
Mac Portable, 99
Mac Power3D accelerator card
(TechWorks), 473-475, 474
installing, 475-476
Mac printer technology, 369-380
Adobe PostScript software, 370
QuickDraw software, 370
Mac SE, Zip drive recommendation for,
227-228
Mac TV, 99
Mac wiring and cables, 134-135
Macadapter, Web site address for, 314
MacAlley, Mac ADB peripherals available
from, 257
MacBinary text-encoding scheme, 491
MACE, audio-compressor technology,
346
MacComCenter (Smith Micro) telephony
management software, 429
MacFixIt (Tom Landau), Web site for
problem software bug fixes, 563
Macintosh, specifications for, 98-99
Macintosh 630 series, limitations of IDE
drive in, 182
Macintosh II, specifications for, 99-100
Macintosh LC, specifications for, 100
Macintosh Standard Gamma, 653
Macintosh Toolbox, software routines in,
470
MacIRC (Chris Bergmann), Internet Relay
Chat client, 360
Mackie mixing board, audio mixing with,
363
918 Index M
MacLinkPlus (Davitz) translator, 57-58,
489
how it works, 488
Macro Virus Protection Tool,
downloading from Microsoft Web
site, 809
Macromedia
Deck II software, 366
SoundEdit 16 audio software, 365
Macs
and PC-compatibility cards, 496-501
audio capabilities of, 342-360
booting from Mac OS CD-ROM or a
floppy disk, 602-605
cables and wiring for, 134-135
categories of, 8-9
checking for A/V capability, 1 10
converting Windows and DOS file
formats for use on, 485
crashes and errors from PC
Compatiblity Card problems,
736-737
creating a boot disk, 604
cross-platform translation of
Microsoft Word files, 487-488
dealing with DOS and Windows PC,
485-508
determining cost of upgrading, 11
determining model of, 97-98
determining reasons for slow down,
61-67
determining upgradeability of, 10
disk fixing and file recovery, 624-628
DOS-compatible from Apple, 496-497
exploring inside of, 130-139
exporting Mac files in a Windows-
compatible format, 486
finding speed bottlenecks, 61-73
first aid for ailing systems, 771-789
font types used by, 685-686
guidelines for opening cases, 1 1 1-1 12
hardware versus software upgrade
needs, 12-15
hooking into PC networks, 459
how the subsystems work, 23-25
improving quality of, 70-73
improving sound quality on, 72
improving speed of, 67-70
inside of, 97-139
manufacturers of adapters for
installing cards and monitors, 314
marketability of old, 1 1
models with built-in AV capabilities,
331-332
networking, 431-466
networking technologies, 432-449
opening the case, 110-130
PC compatibility issues, 727-740
processing subsystem, 23-24
reading DOS files with long filenames,
486
reading DOS media, 487
reading PC files with, 56-58, 72, 485
running Windows programs in, 486
sharing DOS files on, 486
software first aid, 771-772
sound hardware and software,
360-368
sound, speech, and MIDI, 341-368
speed versus quality, 67
speeding up, 16-17
system reinstallation expert tip, 783
translating DOS file formats on,
487-488
troubleshooting network connection
problems, 702-706
upgrading versus buying new, 9-11
using Intel-compatible peripherals
with, 486
using while case is off, 112
video circuitry, 305-316
wiring and cables, 134-134
Index 4 M 919
MacTCP control panel, replacement of
by the TCP/IP control panel, 462
Macworld Installer Tracker shareware,
823
Macworld Mac Secrets, 5th Edition (Pogue
& Schorr), 185
MacYack (Scantron Quality Computers),
PlainTalk add-on, 359
Magic Touch series (KeyTec)
touchscreens, add-ons, and
monitors, 267
magneto optical (M-0)
drives, 230, 236
removable media, 40, 230
magneto-resistive removable drive. See
Castlewood Orb
main circuit board. See logic board
main memory. See memory; RAM
(Random Access Memory)
managed hubs, for Ethernet networks,
439
Mark of the Unicorn
Digital Performer audio software by,
366
MIDI software by, 367
Master Console (Raritan Computer),
controlling multiple computers
with, 508
MasterJuggler (Alsoft), font management
program, 687
mechanical mice, 262
Media 100, Web site address for, 334
megabytes (MB), 31
MegaPhone (Bing Software) telephony
management software, 428
memory. See also DRAMs; RAM (Random
Access Memory)
cache, 31-33
cost of upgrading, 76
increasing system speed by adding, 16
main for Macs, 29-31
sockets, 133
solutions to ‘‘out of memory”
problems, 777-778
upgrading, 164-177
video, 31
Memory Control Panel
changing RAM settings in, 64, 166
settings that can cause conflicts,
831-832
mice, 45-46. See also mousing
as input devices, 42
basic types of technology for creating,
262
cleaning, 634-635
doorbell syndrome, 633
from third-party companies, 262
software configuration problems, 635
sources for, 257-258
troubleshooting, 635-636
troubleshooting PC software emulator
problems with, 739-740
MicNotepad Lite (Nirvana Research),
PlainTalk add-on, 360
Micro Conversions
for PCI-based TV tuners, 338
Web site address for, 334
microBridge (Sonic Systems), for
connecting LocalTalk workgroups
to Ethernet networks, 453
MicroMac trackpad (Microspeed), 263
Micromat TechTool Pro. See TechTool
Pro
microphone
cost of upgrading, 77
PlainTalk, 44, 356, 358
PlainTalk versus others, 360
Microsoft Office, version to version RAM
requirements, 65
Microsoft Web site, for checking for
updates and other information, 57
920 Index > M
Microsoft Word files, cross-platform
translation of, 487-488
Microspeed
as source of trackpads, mice, and Mac
keyboards, 258
MicroMac trackpad, 263
MicroTek, Web site address, 283
MIDI-capable software (sequencers), 349
MIDI-capable synthesizer, 348-349
MIDI hardware
manufacturers, 367
translator (Opcode), 366
MIDI interface, 348
MIDI Manufacturers Association, 350
MIDI software, 367-368
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital
Interface) sound devices, 44, 54
annotation program, 348
audio capability in Macs, 342-343,
347-356
components needed to connect
synthesizers to Mac, 348-349
cost of upgrading, 77
using computer keyboard for musical
input, 348
millamperes, mciximum allowed draw for
ADB devices, 257
MIME-compliant PC text-encoding
scheme, 491
MindVision VISE, for creating
professional installations for
programs and applications, 489
minidocks, adapters for giving Duos
PowerBook style ports, 536
mirroring backup system, 245
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology) Web site, for cable
modem information, 423
(Law (mu-law), audio-compressor
technology, 346
MNP-4 error-correction standard, 398
MNP-5 data compression standard, 398
MNP- 10 cellular-modem error-correction
standard, 398
modem connections, troubleshooting,
692-698
AT command set, 695-697
busy signal, 698
dial tone, 697-698
manual dial/answering, 698
modem settings, 693-694
wiring and indicators, 692-693
modem problems, troubleshooting,
689- 699
during call, 699
external modem doesn’t work,
690- 691
Global Village Teleport, 690, 691
internal modem doesn’t work, 691-692
third-party modems, 689
transmit/receive (TX/RX) lights, 693
modem speed, 396-397
modems
add-ons for, 406-407
and Internet access, 393-429
bandwidth, 404
bps rates and modem standards, 397
cable, 394
carrier signal, 404
checking system for GeoPort, 41 1
choosing and connecting, 404-414
choosing flow control for, 401
communicating with other computers
with, 55
communications slot for internal, 406
compression and correction, 398-399
connection negotiation, 403-404
connectors for, 395-396
considerations for upgrading, 5, 6
cost of upgrading, 77
digital, 55
disabling Call Waiting, 699
DTE/DCE connection, 399-401, 402
Index > M 92 1
external, 395, 405-406
faxing, 407-408
file download speed, 397
flash upgradeable, , 405, 408-409
flow control, 399-401
GeoPort, 409-414
Global Village Teleport, 396, 690
Hayes AT command set standard, 694
high-speed connections as
alternatives to, 414-423
how they work, 394-404
importance of surge protecting, 689
increasing system speed by
upgrading, 17, 66
installing external and GeoPort
adapters, 413-414
installing internal, 412-413
internal, 395, 405-406
ISDN, 394
Mac-compatible manufacturers, 405
manual dialing and answering, 698
port speeds, 401-403
troubleshooting, 689-699
troubleshooting PC Compatibility
Card setup problems, 735-736
turning off dial tone checking, 698
turning sound off, 404
types of, 395-396
typical configuration string, 695
upgrading GeoPort style, 13
modem/serial cable, 134
monitors and monitor cards, 293-316
adjusting brightness and contrast, 655
Apple monitors, 659-660
Apple Studio Display, 295, 301
as output devices, 42
bitmapped images on, 294-295
blurred and faded color problems, 654
blurry picture problems, 650
buying tips for monitors, 302
cable compatibility requirement, 294
checking for cable problems, 647-648
cleaning monitors, 661-662
color depth, 310
color problems with, 651-656
considerations for upgrading, 5, 6
convergence factor, 650
cost of upgrading, 77
degaussing, 649
elements required to create an image,
294
Energy Saver control panel, 646, 659
energy saving and monitor burn in,
658-660
finding antiglare screens for, 655
focus controls, 650
formula for figuring dimensions of
pixels for screen size, 298
gamma correction, 651-654
glare and postitioning problems,
655-656
how Mac monitors work, 294-305
ideal resolutions and viewable areas
of monitors, 299
installing a monitor, 302-305
interlacing, 295
isolating problems with, 647
LCD (liquid crystal display), 295
magnetic problems with, 648-649
monitor dot pitch, 299-300
multisync monitors and old Macs, 658
refresh rate, 295-295
resolution settings, 296-299
setting RGB-to-VGA adapter properly,
657
sizes available, 52
sync problems with multisync
monitors, 656-657
troubleshooting, 645-668
upgrading, 51-52, 70-71
upgrading to use two, 51, 71
using Intel-compatible with Macs, 297
(continued)
922 Index M-N
monitors and monitor cards (continued)
use of screen savers to eliminate
burn-in in older models, 658-659
using VGA-compatible multisync
monitors with Macs, 302
wavy or splotchy picture problems,
648-649
Monitors/Monitors and Sound control
panel, 71
changing resolution for multisync
monitors in, 296-299
Motorola 680x0 series CPUs, 27
Motorola CYBERSurfer cable modem,
423
Motorola Mac clones
built-in resolutions and video
upgrades table, 309
hard drive upgrade paths for, 196
specifications for, 107-108
mouse. See also mice; mousing
increasing productivity by upgrading,
18, 72
mousing, 261-266
mousepad, importance of regularly
cleaning and replacing, 635
MouseStick 11 (Advanced Gravis), game
controller, 480
MouseTouch, touch screens by, 267
MoviePlayer, playing a MIDI file, 356
MPEG
audio-compressor technology, 347
digital audio file format, 345
MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group)
movie file format, 326, 345
MPEG-2 video compression standard, for
DVD-ROM drives, 214
MS Office. See Microsoft Office
MS Works documents, translation of on
Macs, 488
multimedia
and gaming, 469-484
upgrading your Mac for, 19
multimedia-oriented computers, 8
multimedia programs, increasing speed
of by upgrading RAM, 68
multimedia studios, removable drives
used by, 235
multiscan monitors, versus fixed
resolution, 52
multisync monitors, 295
installing, 302
multitasking, 14
N
Name server address information,
TCP/IP control panel, 425
Netopia, Internet routers by, 466
Netspeed, xDSL access from, 422
NetSprocket, Apple Game Sprocket, 479
NetWare for Mac, 449
network adapter, cost of upgrading, 77
Network Associates VirusScan for
Macintosh, 808
network hub, cost of upgrading, 77
network management tools, AppleShare
IP package, 448
network number, AppleTalk addresses,
444
network transceiver, cost of upgrading,
77
networking, 431-466
choosing between LocalTalk and
Ethernet, 449-450
communication with other computers,
54-56
hubs and switches, 439-440
increasing productivity with, 18
increasing system speed by upgrading
hardware, 17
software needed for, 704
setting up the network, 449-461
networking protocols, choices of, 432
networks, accessing remotely, 459-461
Index -f N-0 923
networks, troubleshooting, 701-702
lOBaseT, 708
AppleTalk, 710-713
checking for physical breaks or
damage, 707
checking the hardware, 703, 705-70G
checking the software, 704
dancing icon syndrome, 709
file sharing security, 713-715
LocalTalk and 10Base2, 706-707
network is down, 706-708
Novell and NT, 709
Open Transport, 709
software issues, 708-717
TCP/IP, 716-717
trouble connecting a Mac, 702-706
NewerTech, PowerBook upgrade cards
by, 514
nickel-cadmium (Ni-Cad) batteries,
PowerBooks, 754
nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries,
PowerBooks, 754-755
node number, AppleTalk addresses, 444
Norton Utilities (Symantec)
checking disk problems with Disk
Doctor, 625-626
Disk Doctor, 62 , 625
defragmenting hard drives with,
800-801
FileSaver program, 626
for fixing disks and file recovery,
624-626
incompatibility with HFS Plus format,
625
optimizing hard drives with, 802
versus Apple’s Disk First Aid, 625
Novell NetWare/MacIPX, troubleshooting
problems with, 708, 709
NuBus slot cards, 88-89
for connecting I/O devices, 43
identifying, 136
OMF (Open Media Framework) movie file
format, 326
Omniview (Belkin Components)
controlling multiple PCs from one
keyboard and monitor, 508
controlling a mix of PCs and Macs
with, 508
One World Systems, Internet routers by,
466
online services
high-speed connections for, 414-423
modems and Internet access for,
393-429
online sources, for computers and
upgrade components, 12
Opcode’s
AudioShop audio software, 365
MlDl/Digital audio studio, 368
MusicShop sequencing software, 368
Overture notation software, 368
StudioVision software, 366
Open Transport networking technology,
441-442
troubleshooting problems with, 708,
709-710
Open Transport PPP (OT/PPP) script,
adding to Modem Scripts folder,
427
OpenDML movie file format, 325
optical character recognition (OCR)
software, for scanners, 279, 281
optical mice, 262
optimizing hard drives, 802-803
optomechanical mice, 262
Orange Micro
32-bit drivers for OrangePC line of
cards, 496
DOS-compatibility technology, 498
OrangePCi application for controlling
the PC environment, 500
PC-compatibility hardware by, 493
924 Index 4 0-P
Orb removable drive, 235-236
Other World Computing
as source for PowerBook replacement
hard drives, 534
shopping for equipment and upgrade
components, 12
Outbound 2030 portable computer, 104
output devices, 42-54
for getting digital video out of your
Mac, 322
Outspoken text-to-speech program (Alva
Access Group), 267
p
packet writing technology, writing CD-R
discs with, 224
page-per-minute (ppm) rate, for printers,
370
page printers. See laser printers
page scanners, 47, 48
Parameter RAM (PRAM), 144
battery, 584-587
control panels one should check after
reset, 588
restoring settings after zapping
(reset), 588
troubleshooting, 581-588
zapping, 582-584
parity bit, 398
passive hubs, for Ethernet networks,
439, 440
Passport Designs, MIDI software by, 367
PC Card modems, 540
configuring software for, 542-543
PC Cards (PCMCIA), 539-543
add-on cage for, 538
eject problems in PowerBooks, 762
ejecting, 543
importance of Mac compatibility of,
540
modem not recognized problem, 762
Newton OS to PowerBook card
compatibility issues, 762
“PC Card in use” error message, 762
plugging into slot, 541
reformatting a Mac-formatted into a
PC-compatible format, 542
troubleshooting issues with
PowerBook use, 762
vendors for Macintosh compatible,
541
PC Compatibility Cards (Orange Micro)
32-bit driver software for Windows
95/98 environment, 495
DirectX graphics architecture
incompatibility, 495
limitations of, 732
port technology built into, 494
problems with, 495
troubleshooting, 732-738
upgrading, 500-501
PC compatibility cards, troubleshooting
checking for extension conflicts, 733
crashes and errors on the Mac,
736-737
crashes on the PC side, 738
DOS won’t boot, 734-735
modem setup, 735-736
monitor trouble, 734
PC doesn’t start up, 733
PC starts up black, 733-734
PC compatibility expansion cards
adding PC functionality to certain Mac
models with,493
compatibility issues, 494-496
connecting cables to, 498-499
connecting the PC-to-RGB cable, 499
cross-platform clipboard support for
cut and paste commands, 500
importance of updating PC Setup
software, 733
installing, 498-499
Index ♦ P 925
installing software for, 499-500
modem use issues with, 494
troubleshooting, 732-738
upgrading, 500-501
PC compatiblity problems,
troubleshooting, 727-727
can’t see DOS-formatted media over
1 GB in size, 730
changing file association so it will
load, 730-731
floppies and files, 728-731
freezes and crashes, 730
input device conflicts, 728
loading PC documents, 730-731
mounting removable drives manually,
729
translating files with MacLinkPlus, 731
trouble with long filenames and
removable media, 729
PC emulation software programs,
501-505
for running PC software on Macs, 493,
504
installing, 504-505
types of emulation, 502-504
PC Exchange control panel, for
SuperDrives
formatting floppies in DOS format
with, 487
reading DOS/Windows floppies on
Macs with, 56-58, 487, 728-729
updated drivers in Mac OS 8.1, 618
PC-formatted floppy disks, reading on
the Mac, 56-58
PC MACLAN (Miramar Systems), for
bidirectional support for
Window/Mac OS networking, 459
PC printers, adapters available for using
with Macs, 389-390
PC Setup control panel
controlling the PC environment with,
499-500
Open Transport compatibility issues
with, 737
PC Setup software, resolving Mac
crashes because of outdated,
736-737
PCI-based TV tuners, 338
PCI (Peripheral Component
Interconnect) cards, 89-91
for connecting I/O devices, 43
identifying, 136
PCMCIA (PC Card) slots, 536
PDS (Processor Direct Slots) expansion
card, 87-88
for connecting I/O devices, 43
identifying, 136
peer-to-peer networking, 442
pen-based input device, increasing
productivity with, 18
Performa, specifications for, 101-103
peripheral-specific ports, connecting I/O
devices to, 43
peripherals, sharing on a network, 461
Personal File Sharing (peer-to-peer
networking), 442
turning on, 445-447
Personal LaserWriter 300, ease of toner
cartridge change, 377
PhoneMaker (MicroMat) telephony
management software, 429
PhoneNet cabling, using with LocalTalk
networks, 433-434
PhonePro (Bing Software) telephony
management software, 428
photo scanners, image-editing software
for, 276
PhotoScript Group, Mac to PC printer
software and devices from, 380
Photoshop Lite Edition (LE), versus
Photoshop regular edition for use
with scanners, 278
Pinnacle Micro, higher capacity
magneto-optical drives by, 236
926 Index P
PIO mode 2 performance level, IDE
drives, 182
pixel (picture element), 295
PKZip (PKWARE, Inc.) archive format for
PCs, 489-491
decompressing files with DropStuff
with Expander Enhancer add on,
491
PlainTalk microphone
for entering data, 44
for speech recognition on AV
equipped Macs, 356
PlainTalk plug-ins page, links to speech-
related plug-ins for Web browsers,
359-360
pod. See GeoPort adapter (pod)
point, for measuring size of typefaces,
297
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). See PPP
(Point-to-Point Protocol)
Polaroid, Web site address, 283
polyphony, 349
port choice, increasing system speed
with, 66
port issues, when using PC-compatibility
expansion cards in Macs, 494
port speeds, modems, 401-403
portable computers, 104-105. See also
PowerBooks
porting, versus emulating an operating
system, 502
PostScript errors, when printing,
677-678
getting help from Adobe Web site, 678
PostScript printer, installing, 381
PostScript Printer Description (PPD) file,
682
PostScript quality output, upgrading
printers for, 72
PostScript software, 370, 372-373
versus QuickDraw, 373
Power Computing Corporation (PCC)
Mac clones, 105-107
Apple Tech Info Library for, 106
ATI-based 3D acceleration extension
files, 722
built-in resolutions and video
upgrades tabie, 308-309
hard drive upgrade paths for, 196
models list, 106
processor upgradeability, 152-153
Power Macintosh 5200/75 LC, limitations
of IDE drive in, 182
Power Macintosh line, specifications for,
103-104
Power Manager, resetting in PowerBooks
PowerBook 100, 748
PowerBook 140, 145, 145 B, and 170,
748-749
PowerBook 150, 749
PowerBook 160, 165, or 180, 749
PowerBook 190/5300, 1400, 2400,
3400/G3 (3500), 750
PowerBook 500 series, 749
PowerBook 5300 or 190 that won’t
power on, 750
PowerBook Duo series, 749-750
PowerBook G3 series, 750
reasons for, 747-748
power-on problems, troubleshooting,
572-579
Power Secretary (Dragon Systems),
voice recognition PlainTaik add-on,
359
power supplies
identifying for upgrading, 132
replacing, 574-577
Power3D accelerator card (TechWorks),
473-475, 474
installing, 475-476
PowerBook 100/100 series
battery, 752
Index P 927
opening to upgrade, 515-516
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 748
typical problems, prices, and fixes,
761
PowerBook 140 form factor, opening to
upgrade, 516-517
PowerBook 140/145/145 B/170
battery, 752
resetting Power Manager in, 748-749
PowerBook 150
battery, 752
limitations of IDE drive in, 182
resetting Power Manager in, 749
PowerBook 160/165/180
battery for 160 and 180, 752
battery for 165, 752
resetting Power Manager in, 749
typical problems, prices, and fixes for
180, 761
PowerBook 190/5300
battery, 753
reset after zapping PRAM, 751
resetting Power Manager in, 750
PowerBook 500 form factor, opening to
upgrade, 519-521
PowerBook 500 series
battery, 752
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 749
typical problems, prices, and fixes,
761
PowerBook 1400 form factor
opening to upgrade, 522-523
upgrade cards available for, 529
upgrading RAM in, 527
PowerBook 1400 series
battery, 753
reset after zapping PRAM, 751
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 750
typical problems, prices, and fixes for
HOOcs, 761
PowerBook 2400 form factor
opening to upgrade, 523-525
use of SO DIMMS in, 529
PowerBook 2400
battery, 753
resetting Power Manager in, 750
PowerBook 3400 form factor, opening to
upgrade, 525-526
PowerBook 3400/G3 3500 series
batteries for, 753
reset after zapping PRAM, 751
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 750
PowerBook 5300 form factor, opening to
upgrade, 521-522
PowerBook 5300/100 series
resetting, 746
typical problems, prices, and fixes for
5300, 761
PowerBook 5300/190
repair extension, 764
resetting Power Manager for machine
that won’t turn on, 750
PowerBook batteries, troubleshooting,
751-760
adjusting settings and controls to
conserve power, 757-758
battery life, 756-759
charging problems, 760
lead acid, 753-754
Lilon, 755-756
memory conservation to slow power
loss, 756-757
nickel-cadmium (ni-cad), 754
nickel-metal hydride (NiMH), 754-755
types and issues table, 752-753
using RAM disk for startup to
conserve power, 757
928 Index 4^ P
PowerBook Duo form factor, opening to
upgrade, 517-519
PowerBook Duo series
battery charger updates, 755
battery for 210/230, 753
battery for 250/270c/280, 753
battery for 280/280c/2300c, 753
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 749-750
PowerBook G3 (BTO) form factor,
opening to upgrade, 526-527
PowerBook G3 series
battery, 753
resetting, 746
resetting Power Manager in, 750
upgrading the RAM in, 527
use of SO DIMMS in, 529
PowerBooks
adapter for connecting external
monitor to earlier models, 548-549
adding a hard drive to, 533-534
adding RAM, 512
additional speed increases from
processor upgrades, 532
AirDock (Farallon) for integrating into
your network, 537
Apple-recommended screen upgrades,
535
battery conservation, 759
bays, 536, 537-539
Bookendz port duplicator for, 536, 537
checking for loose keyboard screws,
517
cleaning the outside surfaces of, 765
cleaning the trackball, 765-766
docks, 535-537
downloading Apple Memory Guide
PDF from Apple’s Support Web site,
529
dual monitor support, 549
Duo Dock, 535
Duo Floppy Adapter for, 537
expansion bays, 537-538
external expansion ports chart, 544
external ports and peripherals,
543-550
G3 series, 514
inserting and removing expansion bay
devices, 538
installing a printer, 548
installing an external modem, 547
internal modems for, 529-530
internal slots for upgrading, 529-531
internal upgrades, 512-514
Interrupt button on older models, 745
making modem connections in foreign
countries, 543
modem/printer port, 547-548
opening to upgrade, 515-527
PC Card slots for adding upgrades,
512, 536, 539-543
plastic parts replacement cost, 761
PowerPort Mercury 19.2 modem for
upgrading, 529
processor upgradable models, 532
processor upgrades for, 531-532
RAM upgrade chart, 528
replacement logic boards for, 514
Reset button on older models, 745
resetting, 745-747
resetting the Power Manager, 747-751
screen upgrades and replacements,
534-535
SCSI cable and dock suppliers, 546
SCSI connector, 545-547
SCSI disk mode, 545, 547, 550-552
SCSI Dock adapter for, 545
setting up video with the Monitors
and Sound control panel, 550
shipping concerns, 766
slots, 536, 539
Index P 929
software drivers for upgraded cards,
530
sources for replacement hard drives,
534
sources for screen replacements and
upgrades, 535
sources for used parts, 530
special cables from Apple for
attaching SCSI devices, 545
specifications for, 104-105
steps to follow after spilling liquid on,
766-768
typical problems, prices, and fixes
(Voelker Research), 760-761
upgrade cards for 1400 series, 514
upgrade cards for 3400 and 5300
series, 514
upgrading, 19, 511-535
upgrading chart, 512-514
upgrading RAM, 527-529
using SCSI terminators with, 546
video ports, 548-550
PowerBooks, troubleshooting of system-
specific problems, 743-768
batteries and battery life, 744, 751-760
crashes when Finder loads, 750-751
other issues, 760-761
PC Card issues, 762
power adapter, 744
power outlet, 744
printer/modem port, 763
reset after zapping PRAM, 751
SCSI cable, 744
Sleep mode, 744, 747
startup, shutdown, and power,
743-745
steps to take to resetting specific
models, 746
temperature issues, 765
video port, 763-764
wrong screen brightness settings, 745
PowerMac. See PowerPC
PowerPC
ability to run older software versions
on, 13-14
Apple’s transition to, 28-29
determining if system is, 109
processors used in Mac OS
computers, 28
upgrading to increase system speed,
69
PowerPC G3 processors, 103-104
PowerPC native software, 29
PowerPort internal modems, for
PowerBooks, 529-530
PowerPrint parallel-to-LocalTalk adapter,
for printing from Macs to PC
printers, 389-390
PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol)
adding an Open Transport PPP
(OT/PPP) script for, 427
control panel, 426
setting up for Internet access, 426-427
PRAM (Parameter RAM), 144
control panels one should check after
reset, 588
restoring settings after zapping
(resetting), 588
troubleshooting, 581-588
zapping, 582-584
zapping to resolve blinking ? icon
problems, 601
PRAM battery, 584-587
importance of, 144
locating in case, 132, 134
removing and replacing, 586-587
typical sizes, 585
preference files
including in backup plan, 245
troubleshooting printer crashes from
corrupt, 678-679
print resolutions, versus scanning and
screen resolutions, 279
930 Index -f P
printer description language, PostScript
as, 372-373
printer driver software
for LocalTalk printers, 382
for PostScript printers, 383
printer languages
PostScript, 372-373
QuickDraw, 370, 373
printer maintenance, 683-684
printer problems, troubleshooting,
671-683
desktop printer solutions, 680-682
endless loop error, 682
font troubles, 685-689
freezes and crashes, 678-679
isolating desktop printing, 680
LaserWriter issues, 682-683
PostScript errors, 677-678
printer output, 684-685
printer port is in use, 675-677
printer can’t be found, 673-675
problem creating desktop printer
icon, 679-680
printer server, in AppleShare IP package,
448
printer sharing, and printers, 369-390
printers
accessories, 386-388
add-ons and software, 386-390
and printer sharing, 369-390
Apple LaserWriter memory options,
387-388
as output devices, 42
cabling, 381-382
choosing, 371-372
color proofing, 379
connecting with LocalTalk cable, 380
connecting with serial cable, 380
considerations for upgrading, 5, 52-53
cost of upgrading, 77
cost per page factors, 371
dot matrix, 379-380
dots per inch (dpi), 370
drivers for, 388-389
duplex printing add-ons, 386
dye sublimation, 379
Ethernet connection of, 380
increasing print speed by upgrading,
17, 18, 66, 69,71
inkjet, 378-379
installing, 380-385
laser, 374-378
lines per inch (Ipi), 370
maintenance of, 683-684
manufacturers of Mac compatible, 374
networking options, 386
paper handling add-ons, 386
PostScript, 372-373
RAM upgrades, 386, 388
resolution, 370
SCSI connection, 380
SCSI hard drive add-on, 386
sharing over local area networks, 56
solid-ink, 379
specialty, 380
speed measurement, 370
troubleshooting, 671-689
troubleshooting PC software emulator
problems with, 739
types of, 374-380
upgrading RAM to improve print
quality, 72
upgrading to color, 71-72
using PC with Macs, 389-390
processing subsystem
CPU (Central Processing Unit) in,
26-29
how it works, 23-24
main memory in, 29-31
Index P-Q 931
processor. See also Central Processing
Unit (CPU)
effect of speed on how digital video
plays, 321
individual system upgradeability,
149-153
types of, 147-148
upgrade manufacturers, 146
productivity, increasing with equipment
upgrades, 5-6
program crashes, first aid for, 779-784
freezes and hangs, 784-786
Internet related, 784
Type 1 1 errors and “FPU not found”
error messages, 781-783
Type 41 errors and Finder or Bus
error messages, 783
programmable mice, 264
two button, 46
Proline Distribution, Web site address
for, 200
ProMax, Web site address for, 334
Q
Quadra/Centris, specifications for, 100
Quadra 650 and 800 specifications, 101
quantized sound sample, digital audio,
343-344
quartz clock crystal, 27
Quest drive, SyQuest, 235
QIC (quarter-inch cartridge) tape drives,
as backup storage devices, 237
QuickCam videoconferencing camera, 49
QuickDraw
built-in Mac programming routines,
294
printer software, 370
versus PostScript printers, 373
QuickDraw 3D, 470-473
3-D MetaFile (3DMF), 471, 472
acceleration issues, 722
accelerator manufacturers, 477
APIs and file formats, 471-472
Appearance Manager software
routine, 470
as PowerPC-only application, 722
extensions needed for program to run,
721
low system memory problems, 721,
723
RAVE (Render Acceleration Virtual
Engine), 472-473, 721, 722
rendering 3D objects with, 469
QuickDraw printer, installing, 381
Quicken, version to version RAM
requirements, 65
QuickTake camera, 48
QuickTime General MIDI library,
MoviePlayer playing MIDI files on,
356
QuickTime Movie format, 322
QuickTime software, 322-329
applications and desktop accessories
capable of working with, 324
compression and codecs, 326-328
digital movies, 324-325
for editing digital video, 319
for multimedia on your Mac, 50
movie file formats, 325-326
problems associated with digital
video, 664
Video for Windows translation
capabilities of, 323
Web site address for downloading
latest version, 324
QuickTime video codecs, and
recommended uses, 328
QuickTime VR, creating 3D virtual reality
panoramas with, 469
Qtronix, as source of mice, trackballs,
and unique keyboard solutions, 258
932 Index R
Radius Corp.
PC-compatibility hardware by, 493
upgrading PC-compatibility cards,
500-501
Web site address for, 334
Radius/Reply
add-on cards for serial and parallel
ports, 494
PC-compatibility cards, 497-498
upgrading PC-compatibility cards,
500-501
RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive
Drives)
adding, 204-205
setting up, 205-206
RAM (Random Access Memory), 29-30
adding, 168-177
checking allocation of, 167
effect of adding additional on laser
printer speed, 375-376
effect of in digital video playback, 321
increasing system speed by adding,
14, 16, 67-70
installing, 174-176
interleaving, 174
measuring, 31
PC emulator software requirements
for, 738
software requirements from version to
version, 65
system bottlenecks caused by lack of,
64, 65
troubleshooting startup problems,
588-589
upgrade table, 169-173
working with, 167-168
RAM disk
creating, 166
shareware utilities for automatically
saving and restoring contents of,
758
RAM modules, 30-31
RAM settings, checking, 165-167
RamDoubler (Connectix) utility,
increasing system speed with, 14
Ramp Networks, Internet routers by, 466
random access memory. See RAM
(Random Access Memory)
RAVE, QuickDraw 3D acceleration virtual
engine, 472-473
acceleration issues, 722
choosing a RAVE video card, 477-478
RCA video plugs, 329
Ready to Send command, from modem
to computer, 400
RealAudio codecs, 347
RealPC (Insignia Corporation), PC
emulation software, 57
reblessing the System Folder, 606-608
recordable CD-ROM discs, creating,
224-225
Reduced Instruction Set Computing
(RISC) architecture, 28
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Drives
(RAID)
adding, 204-205
setting up, 205-206
refresh rate, for monitors, 295-296
changing to solve display movement
problems, 649
reinstalling Mac OS
clean install, 847-850
custom installation, 846-847
deciding on type of installation,
843-844
installation errors, 850-851
pre-flight check, 841-843
regular installation, 844-846
tips for a quicker custom installation,
847
unblessing the System Folder and
doing a clean install, 850
Index 4- R-S 933
removable media drives
adding an external, 238-241
adding cin internal, 241-243
cost of upgrading, 77
explained, 228-237
Iomega Zip, 227-228
Iomega Drive Options management
control panel, 618
LS120 standard, 227, 232
media for, 40
performance of, 231-232
special drivers for, 617
SuperDisk, 232
troubleshooting, 617-618
Remote Access Multiport server, Apple,
460
Remote Access Personal server, Apple,
460
Remote Access software, Apple, 459-461
repetitive stress injury (RSI), ergonomic
keyboards for people with, 267
Reply/Radius
add-on cards for serial and parallel
ports, 494
PC-compatibility cards, 497-498
ResEdit, making invisible files visible
with, 713
Reset Serial Port program, 691
resolution
comparing when purchasing digital
cameras, 287
setting for monitors, 296-299
resolution sync, importance of in video-
out devices, 335
Retrospect software (Dantz Corp.), for
system backups, 248
RGB-to-VGA adapter, using with VGA-
compatible multisync monitors, 302
Rich Text Format (RTF) documents,
translation of by Macs, 488
ring network topology. See Token Ring
RISC. See Reduced Instruction Set
Computing (RISC) architecture
R. J. Cooper and Associates, special
needs products by, 267
RJ-11 phone jack, connecting modems to
phone lines with, 395
RJ-45 Ethernet cabling connector, 438
Router address information, TCP/IP
control panel, 425
routers, 441
allowing networks to communicate
with one another, 444
manufacturers of, 466
RPMs (revolutions per minute), for
drives, 38
s
S-video
ports and adapter cables on early
Power Macs, 662
video-in interface connections, 330,
336-337
Sad Mac icon, meaning of, 565
Sad Macs, troubleshooting, 578-579
common problem codes, 579
sampling, in digital audio, 343
satellite dishes
high-speed data connections with, 415
receiving Internet-related
transmissions with, 55
scan converter, for displaying video
output to a television or VCR, 334
scanner software, 278-281
scanners, 273-275
24-bit color, 278
36-bit color, 278
adding to increase productivity, 18
as input device, 42
as upgrade consideration, 5
checking availability of plug-ins
for, 279
(continued)
934 Index ♦ S
scanners (continued)
checking for with SCSIProbe, 640
choosing, 281-283
company Web site addresses, 282-283
comparing resolutions, 279
configuration, 640-642
cost of upgrading to, 77
dynamic range, 278
installing and cleaning, 283-285,
639-640
interfaces for, 48
interpolated resolution, 278
optical character recognition (OCR)
software for, 279
power and cabling problems, 641
quality of, 277-278
SCSI ID problems, 641
SCSI issues, 640, 641
serial problems, 643
software, 278-281
software problems, 641, 642
support for TWAIN plug-ins, 279-280
terminating SCSI port when installing,
284
troubleshooting, 639-643
types of, 47-48, 275-277
scanning resolutions, versus screen and
print resolutions, 279
ScanShare, sharing Apple-specific
scanners on networks with, 461
screen resolutions, versus scanning and
print resolutions, 279
screen sharing, using Timbuktu program
for, 507
screen swapping, using the same
keyboard and monitor to control
two or more computers, 508
screen upgrades and replacements, for
PowerBooks, 534-535
SCSI bus, 185
SCSI cables, 134
and connections, 188-190
getting info about in Tech Info Library,
189
SCSI controller, 185
Identifying, 132
SCSI Disk Mode, PowerBooks, 545, 547,
550-552
SCSI expansion cards
determining need for, 197-198
installing, 198-199
SCSI (Small Computer System Interface)
hard disk technology, 36, 110,
184-192
bus speed, 187
common problems with, 609
connecting the drive, 203
getting info off the older drive, 204
ID numbers, 185, 186
installing the drive, 202-204
terms and basics, 185
transfer protocols, 187-188
troubleshooting, 602-605, 610-613
types, 187-188
utilities, 610
versus IDE drives, 181-184
working with the new drive, 203-204
SCSI port
connecting external removable media
devices to, 238-241
connecting I/O devices to, 43
SCSI termination, 190-192
SCSI terminators
basic types of, 191
special needed for Mac Ilfx, 612
SCSI-to-Ethernet adapter, adding
Ethernet with, 436
SCSI transfer protocol, 187
SCSI Voodoo (SCSI trouble)
common configuration problems, 609
Evangelista tips, 612-613
symptoms, 608-609
Index ♦ S 935
SCSIProbe
checking ‘‘no drive icon” problems
with, 605-606
mounting and controlling SCSI devices
with, 610
SCSlShare, sharing non-Apple-specific
scanners on networks with, 461
.sea format, 246
seek time
CD-ROM drives, 40, 210-211
hard drives, 37
Select Hosts file button, TCP/IP control
panel, 425
self-extracting archive, creating for
System Folder, 246
selling used Macs, 11
sequencers (MlDl-capable software), 349
serial scanners, troubleshooting, 643
serial port scanners, 276
serial ports, 137-139
adding more, 139
connecting I/O devices to, 43
what to do when one needs a free,
138-139
Serial SCSI, 189
serial/modem cable, 134
shareware utilities
for saving and restoring contents of
RAM disk, 758
Sharing Setup dialog box, setting
permission levels in, 446-447
sheetfed scanners, 275-276
short-term memory. See main memory;
memory; RAM (random access
memory)
ShrinkWrap (Aladdin Systems), creating
disk images of the System Folder
backups with, 246
Silverlining utility, 614
checking “no drive icon” problems
with, 605-606, 610
SIMM (Single Inline Memory Module),
30-31
locating sockets for, 132
SimpleText, having your Mac read
documents to you, 357, 358
slide scanners, 276, 277
small outline DIMMS (SO DIMMS),
upgrading PowerBooks with, 527,
529
snap to default settings, programmable
mice, 264
socket number, AppleTalk addresses, 444
SoftPC software, PC emulation program
for Macs, 501
SoftRAlD software, 205-206
software
bugs, 560, 561
CD utilities, 222-224
checking version number of, 14
cleaning and maintenance, 791-810
conflicts, 560, 561
corruption, 560-561, 562-563
first aid, 771-774
for creating CD-R, 224-225
for system backups, 248-249
printer drivers, 382-383
usual sources of problems, 560
version to version RAM requirements,
65
software emulators, troubleshooting,
738-740
CD-ROMs, 740
memory problems, 738
mouse drivers, 739-740
printer and modem issues, 739
software problems, troubleshooting,
560-563
bizarre behavior, 775
bugs, 772-773
conflicts, 772, 773-774
corruption, 772, 774
(continued)
936 Index S
software problems, troubleshooting
(continued)
crashes, 775
error messages, 774, 775-779
freezes, 775
hangs, 775
software upgrades and updates,
including in backup plan, 244
software versus hardware issues,
guidelines for determining, 12-15
SoftWindows 95 (Insigna Corporation),
for Macs, 59, 501,502-504
SOHO (small office, home office) routers,
for Internet access, 465-466
solid-ink printers, 379
Sonic Solutions digital audio products
by, 365
Sonic Systems, Internet routers by, 466
Sony, Zip-compatible disks by, 233
Sony’s Trinitron versus CRT monitors, 52
Sorensen codecs for video and audio,
QuickTime 3.0, 346
sound
getting into your computer, 44
hardware and software, 360-368
MIDI, 54
troubleshooting recording problems,
668
Sound Designer 11, digital audio file
format, 345
sound interface, as output device, 42
SoundApp progam, 346
SoundSprocket, Apple Game Sprocket,
479
S/PDIF digital-audio interface, 362
Speakable Items folder, storing
AppleScripts in, 358
speakerphone, modem add-on, 406
speakers, 53-54
cost of upgrading, 77
special needs input devices, 267
Speech control panel, 357
Speech Recognition extension, launching
programs with, 358
speech technologies, 356-360
PlainTalk microphone for, 356
Speech Manager software, 357
speech-to-text products, 267
speed
options, 69-70
versus quality, 67
SpeedDoubler (Connectix) utility,
increasing copying speeds with, 14
spot color, adding to documents, 377
Spring Cleaning (Aladdin Systems), using
for system maintenance, 793
ST-4UX (Network Technologies)
switcher, contolling Macs, PCs, Sun
Workstations and other
microcomputers with, 508
Standard MIDI File (SMF) file format, 355
star topology for networks, 433
StarMcix (Motorola), product numbers
and features, 108
Startup Disk control panel, checking if
blinking ? icon appears at startup,
601
startup key commands, 580-581
startup problems and issues, 598-608
jump-starting your Mac, 577
power on, 572-573
replacing the power supply, 574-577
startup key commands, 580-581
troubleshooting death chimes,
577-578
troubleshooting when the X icon
appears, 598-599
static electricity problems, Evangelista
tip for solving, 258
static RAM, in digital cameras, 286
storage devices. See also backup/storage
devices
how they work, 24
sources for, 257-258
Index 4- S 937
troubleshooting, 597-628
types of, 33-41
Stuffit Expander
decompressing Stuffit archive files
with, 489
using optional DropStuff with
Expander Enhancer with, 491
Stuffit InstallerMaker, for creating
professional installations for
programs and applications, 489
Stuffit Lite/Stufflt Deluxe (Aladdin
Systems)
creating self-extracting archives of
System Folder with, 246
data compression tool, 234, 489
StyleScript utility (Infowave), 389
Subnet mask information, TCP/IP control
panel, 425
Suitcase (Symantec), font management
program, 687
SummaGraphics digitizers, 265
Super Save utility (Michael Kamprath),
247
SuperDisk, introduction of, 232
SuperDrive floppy disk drives, 38
reading DOS and Windows files on
Macs with, 56-58, 487
SuperMac (UMAX), Mac OS compatible
models and features, 108-109
SurfTalk (Digital Dreams), PlainTalk add-
on, 360
surge protectors, importance of for
modem phone lines, 412
Sustainable Softworks, Internet routers
by, 466
switched hubs (switches), for Ethernet
networks, 440
SyJet removable media, 41
Symantec Anti-Virus for Macintosh, 808
S}mapse Adaptive, special needs
products by, 267
SyQuest EZFlyer drives, 229
for system backups and data storage,
234
versus Jaz and SyJet drives, 234
SyQuest Quest drive, 235
SyQuest removable media (cartridges),
40, 229
SyQuest SyJet drives, 35
for system backups and data storage,
234-235
versus EZFlyer drives, 234
SysCompare shareware, 823
system backups
Evangelista and expert tips, 250-251
how to back up, 245-251
implementing a plan, 243-251
importance of to productivity, 18
shareware solutions, 248
what to back up, 244-245
System Folder
blessing and reblessing, 607-608
conflict resolution, 820-830
creating a self-extracting archive of,
246
identifying extension conflicts,
813-820
labeling items in, 820
resolving extension conflicts, 813-834
testing to solve “no drive icon”
problems, 606-608
System Folder conflicts
binary-tree conflict search, 825
conducting a conflict search, 824-826
confirming the extension conflict, 826
conflict management software,
826-828
defined, 814-815
diagnosing, 817-820
disk cache settings, 831-832
few-at-a-time conflict search method,
824-825
identifying, 813-820
(continued)
938 Index S-T
System Folder conflicts (continued)
identifying the extension, 821-823
memory control panel setting, 831
modern memory manager, 832
one-at-a-time conflict search method,
824
RAM disk, 832
resolution of, 820-823
shareware for getting more
information, 823
solving, 828-830
virtual memory, 832
what’s a conflict, 815-816
what’s not a conflict, 816-817
system freezes and crashes, when
printing, 678-679
system maintenance, 791-810
System Profiler. See Apple System
Profiler
system RAM. See also cache memory;
memory; RAM (random access
memory)
adding, 168-177
upgrading, 164-168
system speed, versus quality, 67
system startup problems,
troubleshooting, 579-581
T
T-1 lines, for high-speed Ethernet data
communications, 415
T-3 lines, for high-speed data
communications, 415
tape drives, 35
pros and cons of, 236-237
TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet Protocol),
424-426
problem symptoms and potential
cures, 716-717
services for Macs, 461-462
troubleshooting, 716-717
using to build an intranet, 462
TCP/IP control panel, 424, 425
TechCessories, SCSI cables and docks
by, 546
TechTool/TechTool Pro (Micromat)
deleting and rebuilding desktop files
with, 562, 788
disk fixing and file recovery with, 624,
626-627
support for HFS Plus, 626
Telechoice xDSL Report, Web site
address for, 422
telephony
hardware solutions, 427-428
software, 428-429
Yo Yo (Big Island Software) hardware,
427
telephony and Internet, adding to system
for increasing productivity, 17
television
getting video streams into your Mac
with, 50
watching on your AV Mac, 337-338
terminal adapter (TA) devices, for cable
and ISDN modems, 394
terminators, SCSI, 190-192
testing, external removable media drive
installation, 240-241
tethered cameras, 49
Text-to-Speech technology, 44, 343
products for, 267
The Apple Store, for equipment and
upgrade components, 12
thinnet cabling, for Ethernet, 437
thrashing, of hard drives, 62
three-generation backup system, 247
throughput, CD-ROM drives, 40
timbres, 349
Timbuktu (Farallon)
accessing a PC from a Mac with, 505
Index ♦ T 939
screen sharing with, 507
Toast (Adaptec) software, creating CD-R
discs with, 224
Token Ring
cabling scheme, 432
topology for networks, 432-433
toner cartridges
for inkjet printers, 371-372,
for laser printers, 371-372, 376-377
tools
for performing upgrades, 155
for removing Mac Classic form factor
cases, 113, 114
touch screens
manipulating the mouse pointer with,
46
sources for, 266-267
touchpads, sources for, 257-258
TouchWindows, touch screen and add-
ons from, 267
trackballs and trackpads, 263
as input devices, 42, 46
sources for, 257-258
troubleshooting, 636
typical PowerBook problems, prices,
and fixes, 761
Tribestar IP (Zoom Telephonies),
switching hub between LocalTalk
and Ethernet networks, 453
Trinitron versus CRT monitors, 52
Troll Touch, cross-platform CRTs, LCD
screens, and add-ons by, 267
troubleshooting
ADB bus, 630-632
ADB cable, 632
Apple monitors, 659-660
basics of, 557-569
blinking disk icon, 565
cache RAM, 590
case, 594
completely dead system, 566
death chimes, 577-578
digital video and audio, 662-668
disk drives, 600-601, 616-617
Evangelista tip for, 569
external removable media drive
installation problems, 241
getting help with, 568
graphics tablets, 636-637
heat problems, 591, 593
input devices and scanners, 629-643
I/O port,cable, or controller, 567
keyboards, 637-638
mice, 634-635
modems, 689-699
monitors and video, 645-668
mouse pointer won’t move, 565
networks, 701-717
no drive icon problems, 605-606
other RAM problems, 589-590
parameter RAM (PRAM), 581-588
PC compatibility issues, 727-740
poor quality laser printer output,
684-685
ports, 591, 592
power supply, 593
removable media drives, 617-618
Sad Mac icon, 565
Sad Macs, 578-579
scanners, 639-643
SCSI cables, termination, and
hardware, 610-613
SCSI configuration problems, 609
software driver, 568
startup key commands, 580-581
startup problems, 565, 571-588
startup RAM problems, 588-589
System Folder problems, 606-608
trackballs, 636
video isn’t working properly, 565
when the ? appears, 599-608
(continued)
940 Index T-U
troubleshooting (continued)
when the X icon appears, 598-599
Troubleshooting Scientific Method
hardware problems, 563-564
hypothesize and experiment to verify
problem, 564-568
observation: hardware versus
software, 559-560
software problems, 560-563
steps in, 558-559
what to do next, 568-569
Truevision, Web site address for, 334
TV (television)
getting video streams into your Mac
with, 50
PCI-based TV tuners, 338
watching on your AV Mac, 337-338
TWAIN plug-ins, checking scanner
support for, 279-280
twisted pair Ethernet cabling,
advantages of, 438-439
Type Manager, Adobe. See Adobe Type
Manager
u
Ultra SCSI or Ultra SCSI-3
connections for 2GB Jaz drives, 234
transfer protocol, 188
Ultra/Wide SCSI or Ultra/Wide SCSI-3
transfer protocol, 188
UMAX, Web site address, 283
UMAX Mac clones
built-in resolutions and video
upgrades table, 309
hard drive upgrade paths for, 196
processor upgradeability list, 153
specifications for, 108-109
underscan capabilities, importance of in
video-out devices, 335
Universal Disc Format GJ^F), 224
Universal Serial Bus (USB)
how it works, 268-269
hooking up devices, 269-270
versus ADB standard, 268
UNIX users, sending encoded file
attachments to, 492
upgrade slot, identifying in Mac case,
132, 133
upgrading your Mac
adding an external removable media
drive, 238-241
adding an internal removable media
drive, 241-243
components for, 131-134
controlling static problems, 155
cost of, 76-77
CPU and memory, 143-178
deciding how to do it, 79-80
deciding to do it yourself, 91-95
determining need for, 3-21
determining your needs and wants,
75-91
external upgrades, 92
hard drive upgrade paths for major
models, 195-196
hard drives, 179-206
importance of grounding strap, 94,
155
increasing speed of, 16-17
identifying components in, 132
individual processor upgradeability
list, 149-153
issues to consider, 5-6
logic board-level upgrades, 92
PC-compatibility expansion card,
500-501
performing the upgrade, 155-164
possible results and cost of, 76-77
processor and memory upgrades,
143-178
sample upgrade list, 78
shopping for components on the Web,
12
Index -f U-V 941
slot upgrades, 92
slots and ports for major Mac OS
models, 81-85
special slots for special Macs, 91
specific upgrade paths, 80-86
speed versus quality, 67
the 75/25 rule, 6-7
the what and why of, 1 1-20
things to consider before, 155-156
tips for, 94-95
tools you’ll need to do upgrades,
92-94
types of upgrades, 91-92, 146-149
unofficial upgrades, 154
versus buying something new, 9-1 1
video-in expansion cards, 332-334
upgrading your PowerBook, 51 1-535
USB (Universal Serial Bus) ports, 43
versus Apple Desktop Bus (ADB), 268
used Macs, marketability of, 1 1
Users and Groups control panel, setting
up users and groups in, 447
USR Systems, Intel-compatible
peripherals by, 271
utilities
for saving and restoring the contents
of a RAM disk, 758
RamDoubler (Connectix), 14
SpeedDoubler (Connectix), 14
uuencoded/uudecoded attachments,
using Stuffit for handling, 492
V
V.42 error-correction standard, 398
V.42bis data compression standard, 398
VCRs, getting video streams into your
Mac with, 50
vertical refresh rate, 296
VGA-compatible multisync monitors,
using with Macs, 302
Vicom Internet Gateway, for Internet
access, 464
video accelerator, cost of upgrading, 77
video cables, Mac, 134
video card
adding VRAM to, 312-313
choosing, 313-314
cost of upgrading, 77
determining quality needed, 6
effect on how digital video plays, 321
increasing display speed by
upgrading, 17, 66, 71
installing, 314-315
RAM on, 311
setting up two or more monitors,
315-316
video circuitry, built-in resolutions and
video upgrades table, 305-309
video codecs, QuickTime, 326-328
video conferencing, as upgrade
consideration, 5
video-editing software, 319
video-editing workstations, higher-
capacity removable drives used by,
235
Video for Windows (VfW), QuickTime
translation capabilities for, 323
video-in hardware
additional hardware requirements for
meeting television standards, 331
expansion cards, 332-334
Macs with built-in AV capabilities,
331-332
interface types, 329-331
video inputs, for creating quality digital
video, 322
video out capabilities, 334-335
video RAM, upgrading to improve color
display, 71
video resolution, improving with video
upgrade, 51
942 Index ♦ V-W
video response time, improving by
upgrading, 51
video upgrades, reasons for, 50-51
Video Wizard expansion card, adding
video-in, video-out, and TV tuner
capabilities with, 333
videoconferencing cameras, 49
Virex for Macintosh (Dr. Solomon’s), 808
virtual drives (volumes), formatting and
partitioning hard drives for, 620
Virtual Memory, 166
Virtual PC (Connectix) emulation
software for Macs, 57, 502-504
speeding sessions by running without
Finder, 506
viruses, 804-810
CAP, 809-810
Concept, 809
detecting and cleaning, 808-809
HyperCard, 808
non-viruses/other malicious code, 806
popular antivirus programs, 808
sample list of, 805
symptoms of, 807-808
what they are, 804-805
what’s not a virus, 806-807
Word Basic, 809-810
VirusScan for Macintosh (Network
Associates), 808
Visioneer PaperPort scanner
example from, 274
Web site address for, 283
visually impaired users, input/output
devices for, 267
voice commands, entering data with, 44
voice recognition PlainTalk add-ons.
Power Secretary (Dragon Systems),
359
voicemail/answering machine modem
add-on, 407
volumes. See virtual drives (volumes)
Voodoo 3D chipset (3Dfx, Inc.), 473
Voodoo graphics accelerators
accelerator cards, 723-724
additional drivers required, 724
cable problems, 724
hardware and software requirements
for, 473-474
importance of games that support
Voodoo acceleration, 725
multisync monitor support, 723
software required to run, 724
troubleshooting, 724-725
Voxware codecs, 347
VRAM
adding, 312-313
and Mac video, 660-661
w
Wacom ArtPad line, 266
WAV, digital file format, 345
Web server feature, AppleShare IP server
software, 442, 449
Web site addresses
Adobe, 678
American Computer Exchange
Apple Support, 529
AppleFacts Online Archive, 10
Griffin Technologies, 314
Macadapter, 314
Microsoft, 57
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology), 423
scanner companies, 282-283
Telechoice xDSL Report, 422
video-in and video-out add-on
manufactures, 334
WebRamp M3t Internet router, for
Internet access, 465
Wide SCSI or Wide SCSI-2 transfer
protocol, 188
Index -f W-Z 943
Windows 95 applications, running on
your Mac, 19-20
Windows and DOS emulation
files and floppies, 56-58
software, 58-59
upgrading your Mac for, 19
working with on your Mac, 56-60
Windows and DOS programs, running on
your Mac, 492-505
wiring and cables, 134-135
word processing, fixing problems with
slow starting, crashes, or freezes,
788
WORM (write-once read-many)
technology, CD-R drives, 212
write caching, IDE drives, 182
WriteiOutloud and CoiWriter (Don
Johnston), PlainTalk add-ons, 359
WTB (want to buy) messages, finding
Mac parts with, 406
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You
Get), 297
X
XDF 3D format, 472
xDSL modems, 55, 420-421. See also DSL
connections
Xon/Xoff protocol, 399
Y
Yo Yo (Big Island Software) telephony
software and hardware, 427-428
z
Zip-compatible drives and media, 233
Zip disks, using as Startup disks, 246
Zip drives. See Iomega Zip drives
Zip Tools software, formatting Zip disks
with, 232
Ziplt shareware (Tom Brown), 489-491
setting preferences in, 490-491
ZipPlus drive. See Iomega ZipPlus drive
zones, AppleTalk, 444
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Keep your Mac smiling...
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